The skill (& art) of playing & making saves down on ice…

I have been getting a lot of requests on articles and questions about the topic of playing down, how much should goalie play down, when to play down etc… What I mean in this by playing down is the difference between making the actual save standing up or making the save with 1 or both knees down on the ice. First of all the issue is not whether you should make saves standing up or playing down on the ice! The issue is about timing, reading the play right and what has the goalie down before going down. I could also add that it is also vital how the goalie goes down and he moves / operates while down on the ice.

Naturally this is a large topic and too much to handle in a small blog article, so I will add a full resource to Goaliepro library on this topic sometime in a future.

Modern hockey has been getting faster and faster over the years. As a result the way goalies play the game has changed too. All goalies on top level like NHL and European pro leagues make +90% of their saves with 1 or both knees on the ice today. This is a statistical fact and I have been following this trend since 2002 on NHL, Finnish Elite League and World Championship levels. This has been done by recording minimum 10 games on each level and listing all saves. Since 2002 the number of saves done while playing down has actually been slightly increasing.

Another fact that we should also take into consideration when discussing about this topic is where do the shots come from. My stats clearly show that the % of saves made down from ice will go up significantly when shots are coming from close distance and from so called scoring sectors.

So when does / should the goalie make saves standing up? There are a few situations where stand-up saves are a natural choice. One of them is long distance shots where goalie has no need to go down when puck can be handled and controlled well standing up. The other this type of situation is shots from narrow angles where goalie has to cover the entire height of the net & this can be done without exposing any other areas open for scoring.

This leads us to the point itself in this article. Modern goalie makes most of the saves with 1 or both knees on the ice, BUT:

1. Timing is everything! If goalie goes down prematurely he often takes himself out of the play and gets scored too much or at least raises the opponents probability to score a great deal. This is an issue where goalie really needs help from qualified goalie coach as it is hard to fix timing on your own. If your timing is not correct it does not matter how good is your technique, how fast and wide is your butterfly etc…

2. Second important piece of this puzzle is goalies ability to move on his skates. This is something goalie must practice more than anything else from the day 1 of his hockey career. Skating ability should be so good that goalie can follow plays at increasing speed as he moves up on the level of play and always maintain readiness for making saves while stay at optimal position. Key for the readiness is balance and proper body position that allows moves to any direction in minimal time and maximum speed.

3. Third piece is goalies ability to read the game / plays. Even if the goalie is the greatest skater it does not matter if he can’t read the plays right. Without good reading ability goalie will not be able to time his movements and go down at proper time either.

Personally I work with these issues always when I am on the ice with my own goalies and goalies I work regularly with. It does not really matter whether I am working with experienced NHL goalie like Nikke Bäckström (Minnesota Wild), seasoned pro like Ari Sulander (ZSC Lions) or young up and coming talent like Lukas Flueler (ZSC Lions), timing, skating/moving and reading the plays are always on our training agenda. Goalie coach has great responsibility in the development of his goalies in these areas and making sure the combination / big picture works.

Goaltenders require specific attention during the off-season too!

I am actually surprised how often I see high caliber teams up to professional level giving very little or no special focus / training to their goalies during the off-season. Even when these teams have goalie coaches in their staff! Sometimes I have even witnessed goalie coaches just hanging with the rest of the coaching staff and let their goalies do all the same workouts as the rest of the team does. I don’t mean that all their training needs to be goalie specific, but c’mon, goalies have different needs from the rest of the team.

If you are a competitive goalie age 12/13 or older you should get specific goalie related dryland training during the off-season! Here’s why:

· Physical needs are different for goalies

· Goalie conditioning has different demands than other players

· Off-season is good time to work on goalie specific balance and agility

· Goalies need to have their off-season programs proportioned different from forwards and defense

So how do you do this? It all goes back to the game analysis that every goalie coach must do and understand thoroughly. Coach must continuously analyze the game and improve his analysis. With this analysis coach must compare how his goalies are doing both physically (conditioning, speed, strength, flexibility etc) and hockey skills wise. With this analysis coach should build an individual program for each goalie.

How do I do this myself? Let’s take a look at this a bit. First of all I am lucky that I have been able to work with top level pro and Junior A goalies for so many years. This means that I have goalies that are always available and willing to work + most of the resources I need. With my oldest goalie, Ari Sulander of ZSC Lions, I have gone to extreme for some years now. He does not work out with the team during the off-season before the team hits ice early August. For Ari I design every single workout session based on the test results and our own analysis that we do together with him.

As a general rule most of the junior teams age 13-17 should get by with 2-3 goalie specific dryland workouts per week and they can do the rest of the training with the team and/or using the training programs given by the team. How ever that specific training is very important part of goalies weekly training and should address their special needs.

It is also good to point out that goalies strength needs are different from the other players and once the team is doing weights your goalies should have somewhat different programs with focus first on legs and lower body followed by strong core/midsection and then thirdly shoulders. Of course goalies can do some bench presses for general conditioning/strength, but that is really not what they need in their game.

So make sure you really understand what your goalies need and build the summer programs accordingly!

Too tall goalie stick = problem!

This is clearly an issue these days. Every day when I visit various rinks I see kids with way too tall sticks that seem to fit them well when kids are in a traditional stance, but as soon as they go down to make a save in a butterfly position the stick is forcing their hands to incorrect position.

This is mainly a results of too tall paddle/grip height. In the past sticks were always measured to fit goalies stance. This was OK when most of the saves were made standing up, but NOT TODAY. In modern hockey +90% of the saves are being made with 1 or both knees on the ice. Therefor you should also start measuring the stick to fit the most commonly used save position.

Too tall stick pushes your blocker way too high and leaves vulnerable hole under the arm. Lot of goalies compensate this by bringing the arm tight to the body and pushing the stick blade further out. This way the goalie puts himself into a position were it is almost impossible to control the puck properly.

Ask your goalie coach to help, find a stick that fits your save making position and feel natural for you.

Modern goaltending, coaching, trends etc…

I have been publishing my goalie blog in Finnish over a year now and figured out that it is also time to start publishing more in English as well. As folks have noticed we have been very focused on business in Finland at Goaliepro and therefore all the efforts have been on keeping the Finnish website www.goaliepro.com/fi updated at all times. Unfortunately this has meant that www.goaliepro.com/en has not seen any recent updates. This is natural since Goaliepro’s business is mainly in Finland with some consulting in Switzerland and Russia at the moment.

To correct the situation we have decided with Goaliepro’s webmaster Juha Halmesvaara to convert the English site to resource library only and remove the other information from there. Changes will be done during the spring. After that we will start translating the Finnish resources more regularly to English and maintain all the business, camp, equipment etc information only on the Finnish site.

This Blog also plays a role on these changes as I intend to maintain both Finnish and English blogs from now on. Here I will address issues related to goaltending, coaching goalies etc…