Loons goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair uses dark arts on penalty kill in MLS Cup Playoffs win – Twin Cities

Dayne St. Clair didn't save a single penalty in six rounds of a shootout on Tuesday, but the Minnesota United goalkeeper showed a few little tricks to distract Real Salt Lake's players, who were gunning for a point in the MLS Cup playoffs.

The MLS All-Star isn't afraid to dabble in the game's infamous dark arts – and that might have helped the Loons win Game 1 on penalties.

With the PKs tied 2-2 through two rounds, MNUFC captain Michael Boxall's less-than-ideal attempt was routinely parried by RSL goalkeeper Zac MacMath. Justen Glad followed him and looked at St. Clair as the RSL defender approached the 12-yard mark for his shot. St Clair smiled. Glad grinned back briefly, but his shot flew at least ten rows into the stands at America First Field.

St. Clair said he and Glad had a relationship through the MLS Players Association and he tried to play off that.

“It's unfortunate when you see one of your friends doing poorly,” St. Clair said of Glad. “But once I cross the white lines, I don’t have many friends anymore unless they wear the same colors as me.”

The Loons took a 5-4 lead when defenseman Jefferson Diaz converted the penalty in the sixth, and the pressure was on RSL's Braian Ojeda to score and add PKs. Everyone in Sandy, Utah, knew this huge moment was coming, but St. Clair decided to ask referee Pierre-Luc Lauzière a question: “If they make a mistake, is it over?”

“I just get them thinking about this process,” St. Clair said of his intention.

Ojeda's PK bounced off the crossbar and back onto the pitch. And with that, Minnesota United took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three first-round playoff series.

St. Clair, a member of the Canadian Men's National Team, is the loudest player on the Loons roster, and with his ultra-competitiveness, he's not afraid to garner even a hint of recognition. From an opponent's perspective, it's easy to see how they can be seen as obnoxious. But there was St. Clair trying to ask Lauzière the same rhetorical question before Emeka Eneli shot in the fifth round. On this occasion, Lauziere sent St. Clair back to his goal line and the RSL defender fired a shot into the net.

“It wasn’t that effective, obviously the guy put the ball in the top corner,” St. Clair said. “It's just a matter of building it up and maybe creating or creating doubt in their minds. I obviously knew what I was doing, so he simply told me to get back on my phone line like I normally do. But “goalkeepers, unfortunately, because of the rules, are so disadvantaged in these moments that you have to try to take every percentage or anything you can do to gain an advantage, even if the risk is not always obviously there.” No matter what happens, they are still expected to score from that distance.”

The 6-foot-2 goalie primarily tries to be a big presence in front of PKs, often extending his wingspan to appear taller in the goal frame. As for actual performance, he's also had success on PKs since 2020, with 44 percent saves on 11 attempts in regular-season MLS games, according to fbref.com. As a rule of thumb, PKs have an expected success rate of 80 percent, so St. Clair doesn't feel any pressure.

“A save or a miss are considered the same thing to me,” St. Clair said. “As long as the ball doesn’t go over the line, I’ve done my job. I think a lot of the work I try to do sometimes is before.”

Best PKs?

Loons head coach Eric Ramsay was asked after the game which of his prolific penalty takers stood out to him. Striker Kelvin Yeboah was first, continuing the 3-on-3 success he achieved on a penalty kick in the regular season.

Then Wil Trapp, Sang Bin Jeong, Tani Oluwaseyi and Diaz converted in that order.

“It’s difficult to single out one person,” Ramsay said. “I think Kelvin gave us a really good start so we put him first. We really trust him in situations like this. He has already proven over the course of his time here that he has the personality to deal with this situation. He probably would have chosen to go last; He is a man for a big moment. But we felt like we really wanted to progress and put the opponent under pressure.”

While Yeboah continued to hesitate as he approached the ball, Oluwaseyi managed a straight goal.

So many players pace behind the ball, pause for a second or two, set their plans for the shot, and take a deep breath before the run-up. Instead, Oluwaseyi wasted no time assessing himself or the situation and fired the ball into the bottom right corner.

“You have to like this approach,” said Max Bretos, Apple TV play-by-play announcer. “Everyone was waiting for the drama to play out and Tani was like, 'No, I still have places to go!' ”

Mute the noise

After the goalless 90-minute game, Ramsay tasked assistant coach Cameron Knowles with organizing the penalty takers. That was the plan all along.

“We didn’t want there to be too much noise around the players,” Ramsay explained. “In situations like this you typically see that every member of staff wants to have their say and the players get a lot of information and we decided before the training we did this week that Cam would just take care of it, the players, and we would try to eliminate any distraction that might creep in.

“I don't know whether that has an additional effect or not, but from my point of view it was definitely cleaner. There was nothing I could add, nothing that I or (assistant coach Dennis Lawrence) had talked about in that situation. I feel like that level of calm and confidence in the process probably benefited us.”

With their success in Tuesday's PKs, the Loons can advance to the Western Conference semifinals with a win in Game 2 on Saturday at Allianz Field.

Originally published: October 30, 2024 at 9:13 am CDT