Are Goalies Becoming Robots?

“I just like recovering and being able to get back into the shooters face for the next shot and obviously there’s going to be times when you don’t have time to get across like that, then the stay-on-your-knees-and-slide-across technique will come in good.  But I’ve always been taught to recover and then come across on your skates.  I have nothing negative to say about that style I just think sometimes it’s almost too robotic…as a goaltender you need to have good technique and good basics, but you also have to have good instincts and be able to scramble.”

  -Olaf Kolzig (Goalie NEWS, Vol. 1, Ed. 11) 

 While watching the 2006 NHL playoffs MTN has noticed an increasing problem in the world of goaltending, which needs to be discussed.  In the face of the new mobility, compactness, and sound recoveries, that are being made, too many goalies have become the same goalie.  Young goalies right up to the pros are starting to all play exactly the same pro-fly style. 

Granted, Mind The Net will teach a lot of the pro-fly techniques such as precise positioning, compactness and positional adjustments while down.  Proper technique does make the game a lot easier, with less likelihood of needing desperation save, but there is becoming a lot fewer goalies who can make a really good desperation save when a moment does not allow for proper technique. For an example, how many times in the last few hockey seasons have you been watching hockey and found that there are goalies who automatically give up if they have slid too far? 

Why has Dominik Hasek led the NHL in SP% seven times including six times in a row?  Hasek knows that he has good scramble techniques when his excellent fundamentals just aren’t enough.Now, we are not saying that goalies need to become Hasek or Grant Fuhr all of a sudden, but up and coming goalie coaches always need to remember that goalies develop their own style.  All of the modern elements can work well with existing strengths and help make a modern goaltender even better.  Goaltending is precise work but the game is not always precise so we need to make sure something gets in the way of the opposition. 

Ian Clarke of the GOALTENDER DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE talks about reaction/desperation saves as being an instinctive response.  The goaltender’s first instinct should always be to do whatever is necessary to make a save, NEVER GIVE UP ON A PLAY. During practice a game of rebound is good for the instincts.

The reason goalies work on reflexes, agility, and flexibility is to make the big save when needed. There are times when the easy save may not be possible so goaltenders need to practice their instinctive responses, without losing the efficiency they have learned.