Crashing The Crease

Coaches want their players to play as hard as they can every second they are on the ice. We often tell our players to “go until the whistle blows” and “drive the net” but what I have noticed during the playoffs are players taking liberties on goaltenders both physical and psychological.  I understand that the playoffs bring much more intensity because of what’s on the line but how we react as goaltenders is vital.

Crashing the crease is nothing new and I want to cover the physical and psychological warfare used to get goalies off their game and how to react to the situation. When a player drives the net a goaltender has a multitude of tasks at hand, getting to a correct angle, noticing a left or right shot, picking up players without the puck, and reading the play. While all this is going on we get a physical shove or take some sort of contact what do we do? Take our “BIG STICK” like Mark McGuire to his ankle, probably not the best idea. We need to battle through situations, if contact with an opposing player or our own defenseman occurs we need to find a way to keep our composure and to keep our eye on the puck. To many goalies get concerned with traffic in front worrying more about the man in the paint than the man with the puck and before you know it where does it end up.

Now lets say we battled through traffic, looking between four or five sets of legs and we smother the puck. Before you know it a 6’3 winger that looks like a freight train is barreling towards the net, he slams on the breaks and what do we become, a snowman. This is what I call psychological warfare. Things like spraying the goalie, taunting, or chirping that opposing teams use to rattle the goalie. When a situation like this arises we must remember to keep our composure. The good goalies will “eat shaved ice” let the defense handle the issue and come out with a chip on their shoulder and play that much better.

 Attempting to gain an edge on opposing goalies will always be around. The good goalies will play through difficult situations and remain calm with their head in the game. A trick that helped me out was to write words or catch phrases on the inside of my blocker. A blocker of mine that I used in junior simply read, “Keep Composure” and every time my eye caught it I would relax and just play. Try it out; it might work for you too.