The future NHL goalie is an elite skater and brainy thinker — with a strong butt

CANTON, Mass.

You know bumper boats? Cam Earle, Massachusetts Hockey goalie coach-in-chief, asks the 12 youth hockey goalies on the Canton Sportsplex ice on Sept.

15.

Heads nod.

Earle explains they will be playing bumper goalies.

They are to skate backward in their stance and, with their butts, knock down anyone in the way.

Last one standing wins.

Advertisement Mayhem follows.

Competition kicks in.

Goalies tumble.

But positional fundamentals rule the day.

It teaches leg strength, backward skating, movement, balance if theres body contact, Earle said of the drill.

Its great for your players, too.

Because it teaches them body contact, how to stay up, how to look around, scan, use their head and keep their head up.

The drill is most commonly used for younger goalies, but even the pros enjoy the fun competition from time to time.

A group of adult goalies many of whom play collegiately or professionally competed in a heated game of bumper goalies at the Goalie Guilds Global Goaltending Retreat in Breckenridge, Colo., this summer.

The winner of Earles drill in Canton was an under-14 goalie with red trim on his Bauer pads.

He bested his peers by being precise with his movements, dialed in to his surroundings, strong in his stance, balanced on his edges and quick to close on his targets.

It did not hurt that his rear end was stronger than that of others.

This is the NHL goalie of the future.

51 in 30 Every generation has a specific look.

Patrick Roy defined the butterfly.

Martin Brodeur did a bit of everything: handle the puck, stay on his feet, mix in two-pad stacks.

Jonathan Quick eliminated everything down low by mastering the reverse vertical-horizontal.

Todays stewards, be they Connor Hellebuyck or Igor Shesterkin or Andrei Vasilevskiy , hold their edges, anticipate plays and emphasize post integration.

The future, even beyond next-generation prospects such as Yaroslav Askarov , Jacob Fowler and Jesper Wallstedt, remains malleable.

Not long ago, coaches had a default for selecting who was in net: the big and maybe quirky kid who couldnt skate well enough to play out.

That does not fly anymore.

Advertisement The NHL works at 5G speed.

Wizards such as Auston Matthews have worked with skills coaches their whole lives.

Stick technology has progressed to the point where Matthews can catch, release and hit his mark with the puck in one motion.

Analytics give Matthews and his linemates intel on which types of passes and shots produce goals.

A blocker-style goalie like Jean-Sebastien Giguere would be out of his depth.

Superior skating is mandatory.

You watch Henrik Lundqvist in the early 2000s and you watch Jonny Quick, those guys were really in the pocket of the evolution of goaltending.

Marty Brodeur, said Jeremy Swayman .

It has been amazing to see the change.

Because these guys in front of us are changing, too.

These shooters are able to shoot, make plays differently and have releases.

It wasnt that long ago that goalies with a high hockey IQ could think their way around the crease to make up for skating deficiencies.

Those days are gone.

I do believe that when the game was a little bit slower, the goalies who werent elite skaters but were elite thinkers looked fast because they were able to get to their spots quickly, said David Lassonde, goaltending coach for the United States National Team Development Program.

It wasnt necessarily because they were unbelievable skaters, but they were unbelievable readers of the play.

But I think today, because of the speed and deception of the game, the number of lateral and vertical passing plays, and the speed at which theyre done, I dont think you can just rely on your brain as much as you did in your past.

You have to have the elite combination of mobility and high IQ.

Lassonde has coached goalies for more than 35 years in college and for the USNTDP.

He has worked with some of the best American goalies, including Thatcher Demko and John Gibson , and the younger generation such as Spencer Knight , Dustin Wolf and Trey Augustine.

He believes as the sport continues to become faster and more skilled, goalies of the future will need exceptional edge work and understanding of offensive tactics to stay ahead of the play.

Advertisement I just think their east-west rotations and lateral movement, whether on their feet or off their feet, have to be so much better, Lassonde said.

With skating at the forefront, goaltending practitioners are emphasizing down-the-road growth.

That night in September, Earle was leading a clinic for local goalies and coaches.

Part of Earles mandate is to promote 51 in 30, USA Hockeys initiative for 51 percent of the minutes in mens and womens pro hockey to be played by American goalies by 2030.

USA Hockey is on track to thrive in net for the 2026 Olympics.

Candidates include Hellebuyck (Commerce, Mich.), Swayman (Anchorage, Alaska) and Jake Oettinger (Lakeville, Minn.).

We want to make American goaltending the most elite system in the world, Earle said.

Were obviously working at the highest level, where were trying to win gold medals.

But you cant do that without working at the grassroots level.

Imminent strength does not guarantee future continuation.

Its why coaches like Earle are intent on increasing goalie supply.

At the U-8 level, the notion is known as pass the pads.

All skaters have a chance to play goal, even between periods.

USA Hockeys updated version of the Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal, assist and save.

The initiatives intention is that by the U-10 level, every team has four to six kids interested in minding the net.

That way, a family no longer feels the pressure of choosing a game over a Disney vacation because their kid is the teams only goalie.

There is strength in numbers.

A lot of times, youll have parents, because theyre so hyper-focused on, My kid needs to be the one to develop a million miles an hour, Earle said, they oftentimes develop an attitude that, I only want to put my kid on a team where hell be the only goalie and hell get all the playing time.

Which is unhealthy for their development.

Because you need that healthy and friendly competition, in order to get better.

Advertisement The concept is simple.

The deeper the goaltending pool is at all age levels, the odds of a breakthrough improve.

Say you hit at a 25 percent rate of starting to look at a special talent with goalies, Earle said.

If you only have one, youve got a one-in-four chance.

But if you have four, if you have eight, you should have at least one or two that could make the jump to the next level.

Steve Thompson, who worked with Swayman while he was growing up in Alaska and is now the head of goaltending development for USA Hockey, believes the future of goaltending development should include less goaltending.

I really think hockey goaltending is heading in the same direction as baseball pitching, he explained.

Im hopeful and excited to see more people sharing the net, and I think what were going to find by doing that are so many benefits to performance, where people will have a shorter duration that they have to be rockstars for, and they can go in and shut the door for a period, or maybe half a game.

I think it will have so many benefits mentally and physically, with so many of the hip issues weve been seeing with young athletes all the way to the professional athletes.

There will be a lot of resistance to it, but I really think that is going to be the step forward for a healthier, higher-performing position.

Grassroots emphasis should produce more talented goalies in junior, college and pro.

The question is how theyll play the position.

Smart, competitive skaters In terms of technique, Knight is a goaltending dream.

The 6-foot-3, 191-pound Florida Panthers goalie shuffles precisely and rapidly.

He holds his feet.

He reads plays.

The No.

13 pick from 2019, the first goalie drafted that year, explodes when necessary.

The 23-year-olds next step is finding NHL consistency.

Advertisement What Ive been getting to I guess you could sort of call it technique is letting my intuition take over at certain times, said the Panthers No.

2 goalie.

And building those habits to where I almost dont think about doing that.

It just becomes second nature.

Thats essentially when you get really good at something.

You dont have to think about it.

You just do it.

Knight spent all of 2023-24 in the AHL while dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder.

His challenge is not unique.

The position can wear goalies down because of its stress.

Its up here, said Jeremy Flibotte, director of Stop It Goaltending, pointing to his temple.

The older they get, I say its less physical.

Its more mental.

Because you do so much of the muscle memorization of doing the same thing that it just stays.

Its up here.

If you cant turn that on, this, Flibotte continued, pushing his left hand out to mimic a blocker save, isnt going to work.

Youre not going to be able to hit your post and do all this other stuff.

For me, the biggest thing you have to have, day in and day out, is the mental side.

Find a way to prepare the same way every time.

Listen to music.

Meditation.

Whatever it is, there has to be a switch.

If the brain is firing, a goalie can practically see the future.

Flibotte raises the example of one attacker controlling the puck below the goal line with a teammate open out front.

In that situation, the goalie seals the strong-side post using reverse vertical-horizontal to negate the jam play.

At the same time, the goalie has to identify a pass-out possibility.

If that happens, a smart goalie knows to pop out of RVH, follow the pass, skate to the spot and square up to the shot.

It is an anticipatory save that looks easier than it is.

I drill them on post work and crease management.

Because they have to be able to do it without a shot or a puck or an actual play, Flibotte said.

Just do it.

Its the mental side of creating a play in your brain of, Why am I doing this? Why am I going post to my 45? I can mentally say, Oh, theyre going to pass out to the faceoff dot.

Advertisement Over the last two decades goalie coaching has become more and more technical, with coaches and goalies often practicing alone on an empty sheet of ice, hammering positions until perfect.

While that has had some benefits, it could also be part of the reason save percentage has dropped in the NHL for nine consecutive seasons.

I think weve been on this slippery slope for 20 years now, where were really diving into the technique and really isolating our skills, Thompson said.

Its been beneficial.

Were a lot more efficient in a lot of these movements than we were so long ago, but where I think weve swung too far on that pendulum is were forgetting to think about hockey as a game and a chess match.

Were forgetting the importance of understanding the entire game and not just maybe the degree of angle were getting into our post, and the exact timing of our pushes, and all of that.

Todays modern goalie is very puck-centered, and the puck determines what they do.

Theres reality to that, but I think the future goaltender is going to be a lot more aware of the players off the puck, and understand its not necessarily where the puck is now, but where the puck is about to go.

Lassonde believes the four pillars of the future goalie are elite thinking, skating, compete level and body control.

The fourth is becoming increasingly important because of how deceptive scorers are.

Lassonde defines body control as balance and athleticism throughout a play, which allow the goalie to react quickly and precisely to unexpected bounces or decisions by the skaters.

I think a lot of goalies are pretty good at staying athletic, balanced and connected when they have to move once, but the question is, can they do it a second or third time? he explained.

Think about broken plays, where you think something is going to happen and you react to it, then all of a sudden it doesnt happen and you have to react.

Does the way you move the first time allow you to move a second time? To train this, Lassonde has his goalies begin skating drills by leaping off the ice, then landing and immediately going into the skating move.

Landing on skate edges, absorbing the impact of the jump with proper knee flexion and having the balance to seamlessly begin a skating move, is incredibly difficult.

It magnifies any flaws in the stance and shows goaltender areas of body control they need to improve on to help react during the play.

Even the skating moves themselves could be transforming over the next several years, as some experts believe T-pushes are the biggest culprit for all of the hip impingements and injuries weve seen across the goaltending world.

Thompson and those at USA Hockey are still hoping to collect more data on the subject, but other European governing bodies have been more aggressive.

Advertisement We want to make sure that our recommendations are research-based with data, and not just a gut reaction, Thompson explained.

We have been partnering with the Swedish ice hockey federation on some things, and reached out to some other governing bodies.

We know theres a prevalence of injury, and we dont exactly know why.

The T-push is one of the targets.

I think the Finns have been pretty adamant in a lot of their youth development of trying to remove T-pushes out of their game, because they feel strongly that it is that sheer force, with the stop and the internal rotation thats causing a lot of the hip impingements.

T-pushes are a vital tool in any goalies skating repertoire, mostly used to cover a lot of ground when the attacking team passes the puck laterally, but the sharp, violent stop at the end of the push puts a lot of stress on a hips internal rotation.

The thought is that replacing those moves with more C-cuts and shuffles which put less stress on the body could minimize long-term hip problems for goalies.

Before we put out a lot of recommendations to remove T-pushes, we just want to make sure the data shows thats reality, Thompson said.

The future NHL goalies brain needs to be wired for more than hockey sense.

It has to manage a goalies competitiveness.

Every play requires contesting.

A never-give-up attitude, Earle said.

Youre not going to have a goalie who ever gives up on a puck.

Youre playing until the very, very, very last second.

If theres a series, youre not giving up on any puck unless its in your glove or in the net.

In-tune brains will encourage goalies to stay on their feet as long as possible.

A goalie who goes down closes off multiple pathways to making saves.

Think of the goalie who drops into the butterfly and slides laterally if a shooter lifts his stick for a one-timer.

Recovery is nearly impossible if the shooter fakes a shot and whips a slot-line pass to a linemate instead.

Advertisement Conversely, the goalie who stays up has more options available: shuffle to a spot, T-push the other way, slide only when needed.

Its your ability to use your edges in the most diverse array possible, Earle said.

If you have to move from point A to point B, you can move there efficiently in two or three different ways.

Then you can recover and you have the ability to move another way.

Goalies with the widest toolkits will read the situation, skate to their spots and select the optimal save.

Those goalies will look faster and bigger than they are.

Shooters will shake their heads and question their goal-scoring abilities.

Attitude matters.

Theres a reason Shesterkin wants $11 million, said Flibotte.

He can turn the switch on and off when he wants.

Thats the swagger, the cockiness.

Im the guy.

Im the guy in net.

They chose me to go play.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Matthew Stockman, Andrew Mordzynski, Mike Carlson / Getty Images).

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