If you see Devan Dubnyk staring off into space before a game, know the Wild goaltender hasn't lost his mind. He's just focusing _ literally focusing.
If it seems like he has fallen into a trance, he's actually exercising his eyes. First, he will focus on something far away, like the lettering on a teammate's stick. Then he will shift, focusing on something close, like his own fingerprint.
"Then you look up again and try to focus as quickly as you can on something far away," Dubnyk said. "Your eyes go in and out. It's like a warmup. They're muscles so you have to warm them up."
Dubnyk, 31, recognizes he is mortal and in the near future, his athleticism will deteriorate. If he wants to make a living as a goaltender for as long as possible, Dubnyk realized he has to do something to gain even the slightest edge.
Dubnyk thinks he found the answer _ in his eyes.
"As you get older, you're not going to add a bunch of different athleticism or skill to your game," Dubnyk said. "You certainly continue to work on it and continue to stay sharp on it, but you have to find ways to continue to improve, and this is certainly one of them."
To improve his eyes, Dubnyk doesn't have to look too far _ only to Edina, where a local company called True Focus Vision keeps his sight in line.
