With saves and shutouts on the rise, so is Chris Eylander’s stock as he aims for MLS

He’s no longer just a goalkeeper who plays professional soccer.

To watch him play nowadays is to realize that Chris Eylander has become a professional goalkeeper.

“I’ve put a lot of work into the game, and I think that’s starting to pay off,” Eylander said.

The former Auburn Riverside High and University of Washington star who is in his third year as the man between the pipes for the Seattle Sounders might merely “think” his work is starting to pay off.

Sounders goalkeeper coach Tom Dutra is a little more certain in his assessment.

“He’s better than most of the guys in Major League Soccer,” Dutra said of the country’s top league that will welcome a Seattle expansion team in 2009. “Very few goalkeepers are better shot stoppers than he is.”

In fact, the 24-year-old Eylander already has gotten the better of two MLS teams this season.

On July 1 in a round-of-16 U.S. Open Cup game, he shut out CD Chivas USA, 2-0. Eylander came up with six saves.

One week later, Eylander kept the Kansas City Wizards off the board in a quarterfinal game as the Sounders prevailed in a penalty-kick shootout after the teams battled through 120 minutes of scoreless soccer (90 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of extra time).

Eylander called the Kansas City game – in which he made 10 saves during the 120 minutes, then stopped two of the Wizards’ seven tries in the PK shootout – his best of the year.

“I didn’t really make many mistakes (in that one),” Eylander said. “I was very clean with the shots on the ground. I just though I played well and I thought I did everything I needed to do.”

On their way to the Open Cup semifinals for the second straight year (Seattle plays at USL-1 stablemate Charleston on Aug. 12), the Sounders, after a first-round bye, not only have won all four of their games so far – every one of them has been an Eylander shutout: 1-0 in extra time at the Arizona Sahuaros of the fourth-tier Premier Development League in the second round, 6-0 against amateur Hollywood United in the third round, then 2-0 against Chivas USA in the round of 16 and the shootout win against Kansas City in the quarterfinals.

That’s 420 minutes of Cup soccer without allowing a goal for Eylander.

“He’s just learning the game better and making better decisions,” Dutra said. “He just comes out here and he knows what he needs to do now.”

For Eylander, keeping the ball out of the net was a strong suit – the byproduct of knowing when and when not to come off his line or out of his 6-yard box, and of simply working harder at stopping shots.

What Eylander did with the ball after keeping it out of the net was the area that needed some work.

“It was something I knew, but Tom really stressed it,” Eylander said. “If you look at the guys a level up and in Europe, their distribution (getting the ball out to a teammate to take upfield) is very good. That’s one way to separate yourself from the others.”

Then there was soccer’s basic element: kicking the ball.

“Instead of lumping it up on a goal kick, or if there’s a foul and a free kick, can you hit a target guy, and can you put it into space and make something happen?” said Eylander, who has had a couple booming kicks this season that ultimately led to a Sounders goal.

“Spending an extra 20 minutes (on it) after practice, I’ve started to sharpen things up.”

So … is MLS next?

Depending on which chat board one reads – and there are several related to pro soccer in Seattle – Eylander either has been signed by the new Sounders FC of MLS, is going to be signed, or should be signed.

All that soccer fan speculation aside, the question that officials from the new club will have to answer for themselves would be this: Is Eylander ready for the show?

It’s certainly no question in Dutra’s mind.

“I though he could get to (this level),” Dutra said. “But I didn’t think it would be this quick.”

Eylander, not one to toot his own trumpet, agrees – in his own low-key sort of way.

“I think (I’m ready). But I can’t bank on anything,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’m going to leave that up to when that time comes. It doesn’t change my approach to this year.

“When that time comes, things are what they are. As long as I’ve done my best to make myself better, that’s all I can really do.”