Goaltender

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Goaltenders

This article is about the goaltender in hockey. For the similar position in other sports, see Goalkeeper

The goaltender (also known colloquially as goalie or netminder) in ice hockey is the player who defends his team's goal net by stopping shots of the puck from entering his team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goalie usually plays in or near the area in front of the net called the goal crease (often referred to simply as crease). Due to the power and frequency of shots, the goaltender wears special equipment designed to protect the body from direct impact. No more than one player on each hockey team plays as goalie at any one time in a game.

Goaltender play in ice hockey

Goalie privileges

Goaltender is typically a specialized position in ice hockey; at higher levels in the game, no goalies play other positions and no other players play goalie. A typical ice hockey team may have on its roster two or three goaltenders. The goaltender has special privileges that other players do not. He or she wears special goaltending equipment that is subject to different regulations from those regarding the gear of other players. The goalie may legally hold the puck with his or her hands to cause a stoppage of play. If a player from the other team hits him or her without making an attempt to get out of his or her way, the offending player is penalized. In some leagues, if a goalie's stick breaks, he or she can continue playing with a broken stick until the play is stopped, unlike other players who must drop any broken sticks immediately.

Goalie saves

When a goalie blocks or otherwise stops a shot from going into his goal net, that action is called a save. Goalies often subscribe to a style, but in general they makes saves any way they can: catching the puck with their glove hand, deflecting the shot with their stick, blocking it with their leg pads or blocker or another part of their body, collapsing to butterfly position to block any low shot is coming, especially if it is in close proximity. After making a save, controlling the rebound is attempted so to avoid a goal scored by an opposing player when the goaltender is out of position ('scoring on a rebound'), or simply to allow the goalie's own team to get control of the puck. Goalies often catch a shot if they can to better control how it re-enters play. If there is immediate pressure, a goalie may choose to hold on to the puck (for a second or more, with judgement from the referee) to stop play for a face-off. If a goalie holds on to the puck for too long without any pressure they may be subject to a 2-minute 'delay of game' penalty. Recently, in the NHL and AHL, goalies have been restricted as to where they can play the puck behind the net. See also shot on goal, save percentage, and goals against average.

Goalie Glossary

ANGLE PLAY: The method where, by positioning themselves in a direct line between the shooter and the net, a goaltender covers more of the net than he/she would otherwise be able to. One of the best angle goaltenders was Bernie Parent.

BLOCKER: Worn on the right hand (for right-handed goaltenders), the blocker is a rectangular piece of equipment which holds the stick, protects the wrist area, and can be used to direct shots away from the net. The blocker should be positioned at one's side, and at a height which allows the goaltender's stick to remain flat on the ice.

BUTTERFLY SAVE: On low shots, modern goaltender usually work in the "butterfly" position, keeping their knees together and their stick covering their five-hole. The glove is kept up, ready for a possible deflection, and the goaltender is focused on the incoming shot.

HOLES ONE THROUGH FIVE: There exists five distinct positions a goaltender needs to cover:

--the One-Hole, located at the corner of the net on the ice on the goaltender's stick side.

--the Two-Hole, located at the corner of the net on the ice on the goaltender's glove side.

--the Three-Hole, located on the goaltender's glove side, near the upper crossbar.

--the Four-Hole, located on the goaltender's stick side, near the upper crossbar.

--the Five-Hole, located between the goaltender's legs. The five-hole is the only "hole" named by number in the present age.

--the Six-Hole, located between the goaltender's torso and the stick side.

--the Seven-Hole, located between the goaltender's torso and the glove side.

LEG PADS: Worn on the goaltender's legs to both protect the legs and increase proficiency. The leg pads may not be more than twelve inches in width. The leg pads should come to about three inches above the knee. Pads which are too long will affect your balance and timing; pads which are too short will not protect your knees properly.

LEG PAD SAVE: A save made with any part of the leg pads. The goaltender should remain relaxed and skate backwards with the incoming shot, thus helping to absorb the blow and reduce the rebound effect. One type of leg pad save is the butterfly save.

LIE: The angle created between the handle of a goaltender's stick and the paddle. The higher the lie, the closer the stick resembles the capital letter "L".

PADDLE: The thick part of the goaltender's stick; the paddle should remain flat on the ice as often as possible.

PADDLE DOWN: A type of stance by the goaltender when the play is coming from the corner to the front of the net and the puck carrier is carrying the puck in front of the net looking to score. Here the goaltender keeps the paddle of the stick on the ground, and the the goaltender has one leg down and the other up and ready to push. This works well for angled rushes where the skater would normally out skate the goalie. The skater does have the top part of the net to shoot at, but it is often difficult to lift the puck over the goalie if they are close enough to the skater.

POKE CHECK: When the goaltender wants to poke the puck away from an opposing puck-carrier, he/she quickly slides his hand up the stick, thrusting forward towards the puck. This is a dangerous move, and occasionally the goaltender will miss and the puck-carrier will be left with an unguarded net.

SCREEN SHOT: For quality goaltenders, the screen shot is the one which yields the most goals. In the screen shot, another player (usually an opponent, but sometimes the goaltender's own teammate - who, ironically, tend to believe that they are helping out) stands between the shooter and the goaltender, obscuring the goaltender's vision of the shot. On a screen shot, the goaltender must do everything possible to try to see the shot, dropping to the butterfly stance and thrusting their trapper out at the sound of a shot.

SHUFFLE: A technique for lateral movement when the puck is relatively far from the net. The goaltender slides his/her legs, one at a time, in the desired direction. This techniques momentarily leaves the five-hole open and, in cases where this may be relevant, the goaltender should use the t-push.

SKATE SAVE: A save made with the goaltender's skate. The goaltender decided in which direction the rebound should travel, and turns his/her skate in that direction. Then, bending the other leg, he/she pushes towards the puck with the off leg, as the bent knee drops to the ice.

SKATING: A common fallacy is that the goaltender can get by with merely adequate skating, and oftentimes young players are placed in net due to their poor skating. In fact, the goaltender must be one of the best technical skaters on the team, and must be able to keep up with the moves of every skater on opposing teams. In particular, goaltenders must be adept at lateral skating and quick pivoting.

STACKING THE PADS: When a goaltender is on the angle, often a sudden pass close to the net will leave the net relatively unguarded. Stacking the pads is a desperation move in which the goaltender jumps feet-first towards the potential shooter, attempting to cover as much space as possible.

STANCE: In a proper stance, the goaltender has the weight on the balls of his/her feet, the trapper and blocker just above knee-height, and the stick flat on the ice.

STICK: The stick, held by the goaltender in their blocker hand, should remain flat on the ice. Keep notice of the lie on a new stick. A high lie will force a goaltender to play on their heels, offsetting balance, while a low lie places a goaltender lower to the ice, and may affect high saves.

STICK SAVE: A save made with the goaltender's stick. On stick saves, the goaltender should not keep a tight grip on the stick, instead allowing the shot's momentum to push the stick back into the skates/pads, cushioning the blow.

T-PUSH: A technique used by goaltenders to move in a lateral direction. To perform a t-push, a goaltender directs his/her outside skate in the desired direction, pushing with both legs, covering the five hole. This method of lateral movement is most effective when the puck is close to the net.

TELESCOPING: An advanced form of angle play, telescoping is the method where a goaltender where to move such that the net is effectively covered, and the distance travelled is minimized.

TRAPPER: Worn on the left hand (for right-handed goaltenders), and similar in shape to a fielder's mitt in baseball, the trapper is usually the goaltender's strong point. The trapper should be kept at knee height, just above the leg pad, and should be open at all times. To stop play with the trapper, the goaltender catches the puck, then brings the trapper in towards his/her chest to prevent an opponent from knocking the puck away.

TWO-PAD SLIDE:See 'Stacking the Pads.'

Goalie Styles

There are many ways to stop the puck and methods of doing this have been created over. The oldest one is the "Stand Up" style. In this style you stop the puck from a standing position, not going down. The Goalies may bend over to stop the puck with their upper body or may kick the puck. Those saves made by kicking are known as kick saves or skate saves. They may also simply use their stick to stop it. This was the style seen in the early NHL and was used up until the early 90's. One of the more notable goalies who was last seen using stand up, was Kirk Mcclain, but most of the goalies from earlier decades such as Jacques Plante were goalies who were considered pure stand up goalies.

The style that came after "Stand Up" was "Toes Up". In this style a goalie will go down to stop the puck and will kick their pads out wards with their toes pointed towards the ceiling. From this position goalies found more success stopping pucks down low than they had in stand up position. This was seen most often from the 70's through mid 90's. Grant Fuhr was the most notable goalie of this style and made a living off amazing and difficult looking saves from this style.

Another style is the "Butterfly", where goalies go down with both pads with their toes pointing out wards and the tops of their pads meeting in the middle. It often will stop pucks from going in from low angle due to the lack of holes. Early innovators of this style were goaltending greats Glenn Hall and Tony Esposito, who played their careers during the 50's-60's, and 70's-80's respectively. Hall is generally credited to be among the very first to use this style, and both he and Esposito had tremendous success with it. This is the most widely used style in the NHL today. "Butterfly" goalies have developed methods of sliding in the "Butterfly" position in order to move around fast in one timer situations. Patrick Roy is perhaps the greatest goalie to have employed this style. As pad size increased it became a more notable style of goaltending and is still currently evolving.

Goalie penalties and substitutions

A goalie can get a penalty like any other player, but the goalie tends to have less bodily contact with players from the opposing team and therefore rarely gets a penalty. When he or she does get a penalty, the coach is allowed to select another player, who was on the ice at the time of the infraction, to sit in the penalty box for him or her, unless the goalie has been penalized for fighting. Goalies skate around the ice rink much less during play than other players and are substituted far less frequently in a game; typically, unless he or she performs poorly, a goalie plays out the entire game.

Empty net situations

Normally, the goalie plays in or near the goal crease the whole game. However, there are a couple of situations when a goalie may leave the ice rink to be substituted by an attacking player to increase his or her team's chance of scoring a goal. A team temporarily playing with no goalie is said to be playing with an empty net. If the opposing team commits a penalty while the goalie's team has control of the puck, the goalie may leave to be substituted because as soon as the penalized team gets control of the puck, play is stopped by the referee to issue the penalty, before they can score a goal. However, if the team with an empty net puts the puck in their own goal net by mistake, the goal still counts against them.

Also, during the last minute or so of a game, if a team is likely to lose anyway because they are a goal behind and the puck and playing action are on the other team's side of the ice rink, the coach may decide to have the goalie leave the rink to be substituted by an attacking player to increase the team's chance of scoring a goal to tie the game. Since no goalie is protecting the empty net, it is easier for the opposing team to score an empty net goal.

NHL goaltender awards

The Vezina Trophy is awarded each year by the NHL to the league's most outstanding goaltender as determined by the general managers of the teams.
The William M. Jennings Trophy is awarded each year by the NHL to the goaltender(s) from the team that allowed the fewest goals during the regular season.
The Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award is awarded each year by the NHL to the goaltender with the best save percentage during the regular season.

Goalies who have scored in a game

A goalie scoring a goal in an NHL game is a very rare feat. Ron Hextall and Martin Brodeur have both accomplished this twice, each doing so once in the regular season and once in the playoffs. Several of the goals, in italics below, did not result from the goalie actually shooting the puck; they were credited with goals because they were the last people on their respective teams to touch the puck. Damian Rhodes and José Théodore are the only goalies in NHL history to score a goal in a shutout game.

Antero Niittymäki of the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms is the only known professional goalie to score in overtime, doing so when the Hershey Bears, needing a win in their last game to make the playoffs, pulled their goalie and an errant pass wound up in their net.

List of goals scored by NHL goalies (bold indicates a playoff game):