Carey Price Kickout (Updated 12/19)
- Carey Price kicks out his pad on every butterfly recovery to simulate a real save and rebound, regardless of drill type.
- Building muscle memory through purposeful practice means every drill rep should mirror a game situation, including the imaginary save.
- Skipping the kickout during crease movement drills trains bad habits — goalies learn to chase rebounds before properly setting and squaring.
- Dustin Schwartz, Edmonton Oilers goaltending coach, warns that 'practice makes permanent,' not perfect — bad reps ingrain bad habits.
- Slow down crease movement drills and stop at each position to build the correct sequencing before adding speed.
It was a subtle move first noticed by InGoal Magazine founder David Hutchison during Eli Wilson Goaltending’s first Day with Carey Price event in 2015: every time Price recovered from the butterfly after making an imaginary save, he kicked out the pad on the side he was recovering to.
It didn’t matter if Price was asked to start the drill on his knees and recover back to his post on his skates, or if he started on his skates and dropped to the butterfly before recovering to his posts from his knees. No matter the combination, Price kicked his pad out first.
InGoal asked Price to explain why he kicked out that imaginary puck later in the day.
“It’s just muscle memory,” Price said. “Whenever you are going that direction it’s usually because you’ve made a save and the rebound is going that way, so most likely you kicked out that leg and typically you are going that direction.”
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