Is a goalie worth 50% of a team,
is he the so called Mr. 50%? Is the goalie by far the most important player in
a team? I tell twice no. In the tendency the importance of certain goalies is a
bit overrated. Is the goalie an important player? Yes, yes, yes! Let me explain
my still a bit unpopular opinion: Goalie-performances in single games are in
deed extremely important but this is different from the importance of certain
goalies…. Hmmm, I try to explain again: I know not a single goalie on this
planet who doesn’t have excellent, good, average and below average stretches
during a long season. So, even if you have Carey Price of Henrik Lundqvist
between the pipes comes playoff-time, you never know for sure what kind of
performance you will get out of them. Will they be hot? You pray to god that
they are… but you can’t know this. On the other side you might face the
franchises No4-goalie because of injuries, illnesses or other reasons and you
might hope that this goes to your advantage. But the truth is that there is
always a chance that this no-name No4-goalie will outperform your star-goalie
in a certain playoff-series. So again: There is a significant difference
between the importance of a goalie-performance and connecting this with a
certain name, a certain goalie. This comes because there are just 30 No1-NHL-goalie-jobs
on this planet but maybe close to 100 excellent goalies on this planet. If you
take also the best goalies in European leagues then we soon will have 120
excellent goalies. Whether this worldwide improvement in goalie-quality is
because of bigger equipment or better goalie-education is up to debate.
Probably it’s both. This is bad news for goalies in contract-negotiations
because if the goalie wants too much money the smart GM simply goes for the
next one and the chance is big that this next one has a very similar quality
than the one who wants too much money. All this means that as a GM you never should
feel too much pressure to sign this or that goalie, in the tendency the
market-value of goalies is going down and this is – believe it or not – because
the worldwide goalie-quality did improve so much lately that the market
nowadays offers to many good goalies for not enough demand. Examples from this
season: Did you notice any significant change in team-performances with the Winnipeg
Jets? They lately played with their No3-goalie but they even have slightly
better results. Any significant ZSC-result-changes? Their No1-goalie Lukas
Flüeler is out for long stretches, the No2, Niklas Schlegel, did take over and
sometimes even their No3, 4 and 5-goalie plays… and I can’t find a real
difference in the team’s win/lose-ratio. The same goes for SCB with the change
from “no name” Schwendener to import-goalie Stepanek. Again, this doesn’t mean
that Lukas Flüeler - or in the case of the Winnipeg Jets Ondrej Pavelec - are
not important players but please also don’t get fooled, don’t overrate their
influence.
The plays of the modern
NHL-goalies:
What we have to know about modern
NHL-goaltending is that if you are relying on your reaction time to make saves
you are out in a hurry. Fast reflexes are highly overrated. Modern
NHL-goaltending is mostly about intuition, reading the game and geometry. You
are watching the puck-carrier, quickly analysing all of the guy’s options,
looking at his feet, hands, eyes and body-positioning and then take the
decision for what kind of action you will be prepared. Most of the goalies work
has to be done before the shot even comes! Again, if you are relying on your
reflexes, on your reaction-time: You are toast! So you have to study opposing
shooters, as a goalie you have to be a life-long student. Connor Hellebuyck
tells that he always was a diehard fan and just loved to watch and study all
the goalies and shooters. He was and is a goalie, a fan and a student at the
same time. One of the first findings in Hellebuyck’s studies was that most
goals are going in when goalies were deep. So he started to develop a system to
stay a bit out more than others. Modern NHL-goalies rely mostly on positioning
and taking away as much open space as possible.
Basically a modern NHL-goalie is
big and fast. Goalies smaller than 183cm are most likely not get drafted in the
NHL. Average size of drafted goalies for the NHL is very close to 190cm. They
are athletic monsters, lean and agile and cover a lot of the net even before
they put the gear on. The NHL will likely shrink the pants and the arm-pads in
the near future and this will have a bigger impact than when they reduced the
length of the pads. Where will this size-hype end? In theory we are looking for
goalies who are more wide than tall ;-) .
Smaller goalies also can look bigger
if they use the shoulders to their advantage. Smaller goalies need to be
absolutely sensational in all other aspects if they want to have a chance to become
an NHL-goalie. The only young smaller goalie I can think of becoming a small chance
to play as a No1 in the NHL is Nashville’s Juuse Saros, the actual No3 or 4 in
the Predators depth-chart. In addition to be big you also need to be a very
good athlet and be fast with your movements. Especially lateral movement is
really important and this because of the already discussed top snipers who can
change shooting angles in a split-second. Coming back to one of the best young
NHL-goalies:
Connor Hellebuyck
The biggest honour for a goalie
is if you call him big and boring and this exactly is Connor Hellebuyck. If you
watch Hellebuyck just follow his state of the art positioning, a real beauty!
In the end everything looks pretty easy and all this comes from his
positioning. His saves then look pretty easy but they are relatively easy
because of his high-end positioning and reading the plays.
 |
| Connor Hellebuyck |
Jonathan Quick
Jonathan Quick is a very athletic
goalie and is very explosive from side to side and in the splits. Please also
watch how he likes to position himself extremely low. This position allows him
too see better through sticks and legs. He also spends a lot of time sitting in
a complete butterfly split. With this strategy he can deal better with all the
deflected pucks
Henrik Lundqvist
Henrik Lundqvist is less athletic than Jonathan Quick but he
is standing very tall and wide during games. He definitely looks bigger in the
net than he is. He also reads the plays unbelievable well, anticipation is
second to none and watch how his body positioning is still under perfect
control while moving. In addition his ability to be “square” to the shooter is
also something to watch, to study in the plays of Henrik Lundqvist. Unlike
Helleybuck he is a goalie who plays a bit more deep in the net.
 |
| Henrik Lundqvist |
Carey Price
Price is extremely economical and
precise in his movements and watch how well he handles the puck. He also is
very quick moving laterally. Like Helleybuck nothing looks really spectacular
if you watch Price and this is a strength and not a weakness.
Braden Holtby
Holtby is the hottest NHL-goalie
at this point. Like Carey Price he is very mechanical and precise with his
movements and shows excellent angle-plays. In addition his butterfly-technique
is state of the art with just very few holes while still maintaining an upright
posture and good balance. He also usually shows excellent stick-positioning and
I also love his rebound-control.
I really recommend you to study
these goalies in all the mentioned aspects and much more. Also study the
snipers, how they usuallay act in what situations. This study allows you to
read and anticipate the game much better and reading the game is most important
in modern NHL-goalies life because – as I mentioned earlier: If you rely on
your reflexes as an NHL-goalie you will be out of the game very fast.
This 3-part-column contains quotes
from Mark Streit, Jonathan Quick, James Neal, Connor Hellebuyck, Kevin
Shattenkirk, Andrew Berkshire, Drew Doughty, Scott Stevens, Patrick Kearns,
Bernd Freimüller, Anthony Weiner and Logan Couture. Thank you!
Horgen, 7th February
2016 / Thomas Roost
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