Goalie Coaching Philosophy: The Job of a Goalie
This blog article is a continuation of my Goalie Coaching Philosopy series based on the conversations I had with Mike Lumsden of Breakaway Goaltending.
Now while footwork is the underlying bedrock for a goalie's performance from a physical standpoint, I want to talk about the second major element of my coaching philosophy: job of the goalie is to stop pucks vs preventing goals. This second element is very much a mental attitude or a mindset that I require of my goalies that should eventually dictate their physical skills and responses on the ice during practice and eventually games.
Let me start with the general idea behind puck-stopping. While puck-stopping is obvious as a major part of goaltending and if a goalie could stop the puck 100% of the time, there would really be no need to worry about things like rebound control or playing or setting the puck. Of course, the game of hockey would cease to exist if all goalies were perfect puck-stoppers as every game would end on 0-0 ties. But that level of puck-stopping is not the case and will likely never be.
The term puck-stopping, or "puck-stopper" as a nickname for a goalie, comes from an attempt to distill the core job of goaltending in its simplest terms. When Mike Lumsden of Breakaway Goaltending and I had our long goaltending philosophy discussion this was my open, sand-bagging, question to him. I asked him "what is the goalie's job?" Of course, the pat answer is "to stop pucks", but I feel that answer is way too delimiting and I always respond to that answer that the goalie's job is "to prevent goals" which is a much broader and deeper concept.
Many coaches like the idea that a goalie's only real job is to "stop pucks", because it allows them to judge their goalies by a very simple and (in their minds) objective criteria. As a result, coaches can dismiss the subtleties of the game with, what Steve McKichan of Future Pro calls, willful ignorance of the position. The idea of past and modern coaches ducking behind the excuse of "no knowledge" of the position will be another series of articles in this blog.
While "stopping pucks" is an element of "preventing goals", it is not the complete picture of the goaltending profession. Usually, I have some odd looks from my young charges when I give them this pop quiz at the start of the season. Older and more experienced goalies will typically clue in very quickly to the idea when they start to run through different scenarios in their head of situations they have experienced, how they responded to them, and the end result.
For the younger kids, I usually give them certain "goalie dilemma"-type questions.
Example #1: "On a hard low shot from a poor angle, would you rather (a) get your stick on the puck and put it over the glass, or (b) make the save with your pad and attempt a second difficult sliding save on the shot from the rebound that you put into the slot?"
Example #2: "On a pass from below the goal line into the slot, would you rather (a) deflect the pass safely away so there is no shot, (b) make a tough in-close save attempt on a shot from the deep slot?"
Example #3: "On a loose puck after a dump-in, would you rather (a) race to it quickly and pass it to a teammate, or (b) let the puck be contested with a good chance that other team may get a clear drive to the net?"
Essentially, while (b) is demanding the goalie to be a "puck-stopper" which to many is the goalie's job and goalies should WANT to do their job, very few goalies, even eight-year old novices, actively choose (b) over (a) in any or all of those scenarios. Even those young and inexperienced athletes realize that there are more preferrable results to just "stopping the puck".
In normal team practices, goalies rarely, if ever, get to use the skills represented by choice (a) and they certainly rarely get encouraged to do so. There are very few cases of coaches pushing goalies to be more active in controlling the puck, as long as they are making the stops. This coaching mindset quickly spills over to the goalie who then starts to think that as long as I'm making the stops, I'm doing my job and I need to do nothing more. There are no penalties or consequences for poor puck control in practice, either from the coaching staff or the goalie's own internal standards of play. This simple mindset will have real consequences in games and over the long haul of a season.
I try to demand from my goalies, even in standard team practices, the "prevent goals" philosophy of training and play. As a result, I have had situations of goalies being so effective with using their stick around the net to break up plays during practice, they were asked by their coaches to not do so any more. Many of my goalies are getting so effective at controlling rebounds on perimeter shots, in order for the team to practice driving the net for rebounds, we've had to set up boards in front of the goalie to (artificially) create these second opportunities. Or worse, we've had to take away the goalies' sticks to limit their puck-control abilities. The goalies that are this effective in practice see the results in games.
The best save you'll ever make is the one you don't have to!
Steve McKichan
Goalie coaches themselves are very often at fault. Goalie coaches practice B scenarios a LOT, but A scenarios not nearly enough. Drills are often set to encourage post-save responses. Little is done to reward good controlled saves that require no post-save response other than recovering and repositioning. Now don't get me wrong, post-save responses that require a second-effort save are extremely important and need to be practiced in a controlled way to build an instantaneous reaction. But emotional and positive reinforcement on a second-effort save in practice on a shot or a scenario that shouldn't have required one, is like rewarding a defenseman that took a penalty to recover from a mistake in his own defensive zone. He may have helped stop a goal, but he has created a new dangerous situation from a play that shouldn't have required a second effort in the first place.
Banger Maxim #409: Everything is stickin' like dad's barbeque chick'n!
Check out Boston Bruins prospect, Adam Morrison, exercising puck-control saves on nearly every shot in practice.
I remember my senior team coach often thought it was helpful to tell me before a game, "hey, goaltending is easy. You just have to stop the puck". Usually this was his way to help me not over-complicate a big game against a tough team where I would typically tie myself in mental knots worrying about it. I don't think he was actually suggesting that "puck-stopping" was all there was to goaltending. I hark back to an old addage from veteran goalie coach, Jim Park, to drive home my point.
"High level goaltending is like professional billiards. It is not what you take away from the table that matters, but what you leave behind."
If you ever watched elite billiard players, what is most remarkable about their skill is not so much on how they sink the balls, but how they set up the table with every shot. After they sink their target ball, they manage to move the remaining balls to desired locations and the cue ball after striking its target, settles in a perfect spot to set up the next play. Lay people watching the sport may only notice how the billiard player sinks the balls, but the students of the game see how the player sets up the table after sinking the ball.
Watch how World Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan uses post-strike ball placement to clear a table in billiards.
I rarely see this level of observation in hockey by even by so-called high level coaches. They notice the tremendous effort on a second save, but rarely recognize the goalie that never has to make those types of saves because they have actively controlled the placement of the puck after the initial save. Teams that recruit goalies based soley on their ability on second saves will soon find themselves down in the standing mid-way through the season for seemingly inexplicable reasons.
There are shots and scenarios that are definitely outside the control (or reaction) zone of a goaltender. Plays in tight where a goalie has very little reaction time will create a lot of rebounds or second and third scoring attempts. Screens and obstructed vision will also create plays where a goalie must drop from a "prevent goals" mindset to a "just stop the puck" one. Defensive breakdowns in and around the net may cause scoring chances from forwards in a totally open spot. These scoring chances are very hard to control and desperation types saves may be required even though they lead to saves with uncontrolled rebounds.
As a goalie developer, what should we be doing to create these effective goal-preventers?
Firstly, standards in team practice should be held to what I call game-standards. Generally the first five minutes of flow drills where the team is shooting and warming up, I allow my goalies to just "feel" the puck. After the five-minute mark, we establish shots are to be handled at game-standard. Game standard means that every shot should be regarded as potential goal against in a real game and rebounds, positioning, post-save response, and puck placement are judged just like the goalies were in a game. Good controlled saves, either caught or redirected to a safe area, are praised loudly and enthusiastically. Poorly controlled saves that result in rebounds or bad puck placement are admonished even if there was a strong post-save response.
Secondly, when working with their goalies, goalie coaches should try to help young goalies recognize shots released from the puck-control or "reaction" zone. Shots from the reaction zone should be controlled rather than simply just stopped. In addition to this recognition, the goalie coach will try to expand a goalie's control zone, thereby allowing the goalie to control more shots in closer proximity to the net. Game experience and drills that work on the border of the control zone and stopping zone should help goalies become more reactive and more willing and skilled at controlling shots.
Banger Maxim #51: If you can see the shot, you should be able to control it.
Next, active sticks breaking up walk-outs or passes through the blue paint should also be encouraged. Situations where a goalie can play a contested puck safely, a goalie should. Allowing goalies to handle, play, and set the puck for their teammates in practice in a low consequence environment will increase their in-game skill at this important game management skill.
Banger Maxim #349: If a pass goes through the blue, who wears the goal? YOU!!
The importance of developing a strong responsibility to shot control and a goal-prevention mindset is that it is not something that can easily be switched on in a game. It must become a natural instinct like a butterfly knee-drive or a t-push. Problems arise when a goalie hasn't made puck-control a natural part of their game. When a game starts and then the shots, rebounds, passes and loose puck have real consequences, it causes one of two things. (1) The goalie now tries to overthink every shot or play which typically results in them overplaying or overreacting on each shot. It may result in more uncontrolled save responses or worse easy goals against that seem to just go through the goalie since their brain was halfway caught between controlling the puck or stopping the puck. Trying to do too much can be as disasterous as doing too little. Goalies who are not ready to control pucks make a conscious effort to do too much. (2) The goalie ends up going into pure blocking robot mode. 
Hey, kids! Don't be a robot!Every shot on net ends with nearly the same result: a stopped initial shot but garbage in and around of the net that the team has to contest. And face it, if thirty shots result in twenty contested rebounds, the defending team is going to lose about half of them. The end result is 10 good secondary scoring chances. The save percentage on secondary chances is only about 80% at best. That could equal two unnecessary goals a game.
Practice as you would in a game. Don't a be just a "game goalie". Even practice is a game and it should be played with the same intensity and attention to detail as you would in a game.
In my follow up posts, I plan to move away from the puck-control aspect of goaltending and dive into idea that the goalie's job is to "prevent goals" and not just "stop pucks. While puck-stopping and puck-control are elements of "preventing goales". Other facets of that point are brought into an important light. Preventing goals as a goaltender explores the idea about what goalies can do in and around their net to manage the game both individually and with their teammates.
I wanted to make sure everyone could check out an earlier post on the blog about Control Goaltending. It talks about the four different elements of control goaltending. It was originally one of the first articles I wrote concerning the issue.