Footwork and Fundamentals Drill: Shooters Top Walk with Attack Option

Sometimes things that seem very simple have in reality many complicated nuances.  This drill that I have used for years and forgot about was recently resurrected in my mind when I worked at Dan Lacosta's Varsity Goaltending's Elite Camp this past August in Fredericton.

The drill is deceptively simple and very easy to set up with one shooter.  The drill is also ideal to use on the wall at center ice whenever the coaches want to use the endzones for team- or positional-based drills.  The net, in those instances, can be set up on the blue or red line to allow the goalies to get a center net reference.

The simple take on the drill is that it is just a pure tracking drill.  But there are so many other teaching points that make the drill a skill bonanza.  It is a great way to teach young goalies about the benefits of the shuffle vs the t-push during a lateral track.  The tracking issues in this drill are very important.  Letting the shooter lead or staying patient and trying to not get ahead of the shooter are the major point of the drill.  Appropriate depth selection is important on the initial push out, but it is also vital that the goalie continues this depth level as the shooter drives laterally across.  The temptation for many goalie is to panic and start to "shave the blue paint".  "Shaving the blue paint" is the term I use when goalies get deeper in the net unconciously when tracking lateral puck carries with their shuffles.Upper Echelon Goaltending: Shooters Top Walk with Attack Option

Also, ideally, I would like to see the goalie set on the shot release and not always flowing or sliding into the shot.  Some center-shifting to improve position on the shotline can help the goalie control the shot better, however.  The criteria on whether the goalie should slide into the shot would depend on how close the top walk is to the net, how quickly the shooter is cutting across, and, more complicating, whether the shooter has back pressure or not. The downloadable drill has listed changing the height of the cones as a variation.  

The group profiled in the video are from Dan's Elite Camp so we wanted to make it a bit more challenging.  We allowed the shooters to drive the net with an attack after they passed the last cone.  This would force the goalies to chain some of their movements.  By turning their lateral shuffle and sets into a quick backward c-cut retreat, goalies had to read when to have static/set feet or dynamic/retreating feet.  I love to add that element to a simple drill as it takes an exercise that was basically just positioning and shot-stopping into a more situation-read drill opportunity.  The retreat can't start to early or a good shooter will burn the goalie with an quick shot release after cutting around the last cone.  "Shaving the blue" here, too, will have the goalie too deep too early when the shooter starts to drive the net.

Finally, you can ramp this drill even further by adding a screen or two with your spare goalies or some deflection boards.

You can download the pdf of the drill details here.  

The video shot at Dan Lacosta's Varsity Goaltending showing the execution of this drill: