Rule # 2 Control the Puck

Copyright © Jukka Ropponen 2000

Article 3/5

     The goalie has to be an active participant in the game and puck control becomes one of the key issues on helping his/her team.

There are several ways to control the puck better:

• The first and very basic level of puck control comes from solid basic saves where the rebounds are well controlled and the goalie knows where he/she is deflecting the puck. The aim is to direct the puck to the corners and out of the danger zone straight from the saves. The goaltender's own team will also benefit a great deal from goaltending with well-controlled rebounds, as they know where they need to go to get the puck and they don't need to fight for loose pucks in front of the goal too often.

     Let's look at some very typical puck control opportunities for the goalie:

• High/mid high shots straight at the goalie. What's there to control? Let's see; Why do a lot of goalies let these pucks hit them and bounce out right in front of their net? This is a very common problem today and caused by the heavy emphasis on the butterfly style, where goalies often leave their catch glove too far back, even in their stance, and can't move it fast enough to the front of their body. Solid fundamentals are so important and in this case the basic stance. If you don't have the proper stance you will not be able to control the pucks as well as you should and therefore, will give too many unnecessary rebounds. The most typical area for this mistake is knee high shots straight at the pads. Most young goalies are happy just to kick those pucks out for rebounds simply because nobody has been teaching them the right way and they don't feel comfortable trying to play those pucks with their catch glove because it is A) Too far behind in their stance and/or B) They have not been practicing it.

• I'd like to continue to talk about puck control using your catch glove. Anything shot to your catch glove side should be, in most cases, playable with the glove and when the goalie does this he/she will have control of the puck. Think, for example, of a situation where the shot is a low one to the catch glove corner. Most goalies would just get the pad out and kick the rebound out. Now look at the photo on the right and see how we like to teach goalies to have their balance forwards and reach with their catch glove out and play the puck in front of the pad. This will make a huge difference, whether you kick the rebound out or actually control the puck with your catch glove. Being down in a kick save position will make the goalie real vulnerable when he/she gives a rebound already being down on the ice.

• Now let's look at a couple of more areas where the goaltender can help his/her team by controlling the puck better. First of all, it is a good trend that referees have started to force the young goalies to play the puck more instead of falling on it every time and getting a whistle. I would like to see more and more coaches starting to use their goalies as 6th skaters out there. What I mean by this is that when a goalie catches a puck with his/her catch glove and has good control of it the first thought should be to see if he/she has any of his/her own teammates open to pass the puck. Naturally the goalies need to learn to stick handle etc. as well, but this can all be taught quite early as a basic principle and then when the goalies get older, there should be more emphasis on it. As a rule of thumb, it is most of the time, better to play the puck to your own teammate than forcing a face-off at your own end. Basically this could mean that each time a goalie makes a pass to his/her teammate after catching a shot, it equals a won face-off at his/her own end. Naturally there are situations where the pass is not possible or it does not make any sense because of a long shift etc. The better stick handler a goalie is the less his/her teammates need to skate to the goalie to pick up the puck and the easier it will be for the team to break out quickly from their own end.

• I would also like to see goalies starting to help their own team quite early by stopping the shoot-ins behind their net. This has to be practiced so that the team will know what to expect from the goalie during the game and this way the team will gain an advantage over the opponents by being able to predict where to skate for the puck sooner than the opponents. There also has to be good communications between the defense and the goalie on shoot-ins. We will have a separate article on that topic later. Goaltenders also needs to develop the capability to clear the puck when going to stop a shoot-in, especially when their teammate gets into the situation that he/she can't get to the puck. In these situations a goalie needs to get the puck high on the glass with a hard shot usually with their forehand so as to buy the defense and the goalie enough time to play the situation before the opponent gets good control of the puck or shoot's it.

• Lastly, I'd like to mention how important it is that a goalie is a good stick handler on the close-in plays, and can clear the loose pucks in front of the net or cover them with good technique and quickness. We are also looking to publish additional articles on stick handling in the future, here at our website.

     Very basic puck control starts with proper basic saves where a goalie deflects the puck to the corners like in this blocker example.

      Here you see the goalie controlling the shot with his catch glove instead of kicking it out for a rebound.

     Notice the balance and how this goalie stops the shot with his catch glove in front of his pad instead of kicking it out for a rebound.

     This goaltender is helping his team by stopping shoot-ins.

      What's wrong on this stop? Notice the angle of the blade. This way you can easily deflect the puck out in front of your own empty net!

     Here the goalie is getting ready to clear the puck which will buy his team time to setup their defence.