Boston's Pocket Goalie: Khudobin with a Great Glove

After Enroth, it is nice to see a "pocket goalie" making his mark in the NHL.  Anton Khudobin, who is generously listed as 5 ft. 10in., is giving Boston some solid backing up of Finn phenom, Tuukka Rask.  Source: Wikipedia Creative CommonsHis small size combined with amazing footwork makes Khudobin an entertaining goalie to watch.  I think he even has better feet than Tim Thomas did, and he knows when he can commit heavily on a shot to maximize his depth and physical real estate.  Keep an eye on this kid.

Anyways, here is a good highlight sequence that looks like a very basic drill (see: As Easy As ABC drill in the downloads).  Khudobin has to play a quick pass out from below the line into the very high slot which is the prime scoring area.  Notice the interesting choice that he makes.  He doesn't push and set on the shot.  He also doesn't commit to a butterfly slide out to the top of the crease which is what you would see many modern goalies make.  Well aware of his body size, Khudobin pushes hard out and drifts on his edges rather than sliding on his knees.  Going down early for him off the post would have definitely opened up too much upper net for an NHL shooter.  He reads the height of the shot before allowing his knees to collapse.

To top it all off, he makes a great reaction save without planted feet which is not easy to do.  While his reactions are probably extremely well honed being a small-framed goalie, the big key that all goalies can take from how he played this situation was his early visual contact to shooter and his release of the puck.  The early visual lead probably allowed him to make his smart decision on staying up on the shot as long as possible and enabled him to get the leather on a rocket to the open side of the net.

Here is the save in all its glory!