Cal Petersen: Strategy for looking around screens
With Cal Petersen
LA's Petersen walks us through a tipped point shot focusing on his strategy for seeing around screens.
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IImpressive Los Angeles Kings rookie Cal Petersen spent more than an hour with InGoal early in the NHL pause, first taping an interview for the InGoal Radio Podcast, and then reviewing tape of plays from the past season and sharing his insights and reads on certain situations.
This is the fourth of those Pro Reads with Petersen, and if you haven’t already checked out the first three, they included an insightful first video review of a 6-on-5 sequence against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a lesson on handling a 2-on-0 against the Edmonton Oilers, and a flash-screen, against-the-grain deflection against the Vegas Golden Knights.
This time Petersen walks us through another chance against Vegas that involves a screen, and some of his keys and strategies for finding pucks and choosing sightlines through traffic.
The Scenario
This starts as an offensive zone faceoff won by the Golden Knights at 5-on-5, and ends with a one-timer through traffic and a tip, but the biggest challenge for Petersen may have been finding the puck before the pass because Vegas did a good job establishing a screen there:
The Save
Again, Petersen chooses to stay on the short side of that second layer of traffic coming into his sight line as Schmidt lets go of that one-timer from the point. It’s more intuitive in this case, but as Petersen himself explains below, both instances are part of a “short-side dominant” plan for handling traffic that he developed with former Kings goalie development coach Dusty Imoo.
We’ll let Petersen explain both in his own words while he breaks down the save below.
The Pro-Read
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- Petersen breaks down his save on a screened one-timer from the point by Vegas's Nate Schmidt, following an offensive zone faceoff won by the Golden Knights at 5-on-5.
- Stay on the short side of traffic rather than immediately hunting for the puck — Petersen explains that chasing the puck through screens causes goalies to end up on the wrong side of players moving into the lane.
- Petersen's 'short-side dominant' philosophy, developed with Dusty Imoo, means maintaining a consistent positional anchor relative to traffic so that sightlines open naturally rather than requiring reactive head movement.
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