Understand Angles - Take Advantage

Copyright © Jukka Ropponen 2003

Article 2 / 4

     In this second article of our angle series we will look a little deeper into the basics of angles so that you will get a good enough understanding of our philosophy for angles and especially why we teach things certain ways.

     When you understand the dynamics of angles better than the shooter trying to score on you, you will always have an advantage in the situation.

Correct angle, player or the puck?

     This is quite clear for all goalies who have ever received any instructions – always align yourself between the center of the net (center point of your goal line) and the puck!

     Why? Once again, a very simple answer: This way you will always have an equal amount of space to cover on both sides and therefore a better chance to make the save.

     In this area you can also gain an advantage over the shooter as they will never see the play the way you see it if your are focused on the puck and aligned properly. Shooters' views are always on either side of the puck depending on which side they shoot from. A left shooter always sees more space on the catch glove side and therefore has a tendency to go to that side when trying to score. They also see more space on top than on the bottom, even with a stand-up style goalie, although this is starting to be generally true in most situations as goalies are using the butterfly so much these days to take the bottom of the goal away.

     More advanced goalies often align themselves even a little more provocatively more towards their weaker side exposing even more net on their stronger side and thus forcing the shooters to go there. Most often it’s the catch glove side they leave more space on for left shooters. I don’t recommend this to be done all the time as a pattern or to be done at all by any young goalies. Learn the basics first and when you end up playing at a high level later you may sometimes use tricks like this against some shooters, but even then only very selectively.

     In this article I am not going to cover the depth part too much as our next article will be focused on how far you should be coming out.

Angle – one- or multidimensional issue?

     Some goalies think their angles way too much the 1-dimensional way, how much do I come out and how much distance do I need to cover on my sides to cover the whole goal. You have to think vertically as well as horizontally. It’s not only the matter how much distance from your pad or glove to the post, but also vertically like where are my gloves compared to the open space in the net.

     Look at the photos (right) and get a good understanding what I mean by this.

     It’s also a very common mistake to check the angles only in your stance. Modern goalies play a lot down on the ice . Actual study showed goalies making their saves down on the ice 78-92% of the time.

     So understand your angles both ways when standing up and when in your butterfly/down on the ice.

Articles in this series

1. Introduction to angles
2. Understand angles – Take advantage (This article)
3. How far should I come out? (To be published later)
4. Drills & training tips (To be published later)

Angles are multi-dimensional. You have to think vertically as well as horizontally. Here you see a goalie covering the top corner when the red line goes from puck to the crossbar / post corner.

As soon as the goalie goes down there's much more open space on upper part of the net.