Photo: InGoal / Scott Slingsby
Bob Essensa played 446 NHL games over a 15-year professional career stopping pucks, and is preparing to start his 14th season as the goaltending coach of the Boston Bruins, a run that includes winning the Stanley Cup and three Vezina Trophy wins by his goalies.
But all that experience and success doesn’t stop other goalies and coaches from questioning Essensa about allowing Vezina-winner Tuukka Rask to use shin-on-post for reverse-VH.
“I get push back in terms of you know how we get into our seals,” Essensa said. We’ll sit around a table in the summer with three or four goalie coaches and they’re saying ‘why are you a believer in the shin lock? Guys get stuck left and right, why are you so married to it?’”
For starters, take a look at this video last week of Rask and Essensa working on his movement in and out of his posts using his shin as the seal point, and how effectively he does it:
Become a Member to Read the Full Article
We’re working hard to bring you the best exclusive goaltending content whether you play goal, you are a coach, a parent of a goaltender, or a fan of the greatest position in sports.
All InGoal Premium members enjoy an ad-free experience.
Already a member? Log in
Comments
Let's talk goaltending!
We welcome your contribution to the comments on this and all articles at InGoal. We ask that you keep it positive and appropriate for all - this is a community of goaltenders and we're here for each other! See our comment policy for more information.
Watched this many many times in slo-mo, and I can’t wait to try it at a stick time. One thing I noticed is that when he slides into the RVH he doesn’t actually put his trailing leg/knee onto the ice, and I’m guessing it helps him arrive at a true RVH because he’s not simply in the butterfly and his leg doesn’t have to come off the ice to get that hinge position. The other thing – and I’m not sure if this is an intentional adaptation or a byproduct of the shin-on-post position – is that when he pushes off the net and into a butterfly slide, his lead leg isn’t really flared out wide, it’s a much more narrow butterfly than when he slides into the RVH. Overall the push off the post looks to have more of a KICK motion than a push which starts from the foot. I heard about this on the IGM podcast and I’m glad I subscribed so I could see it. I was *sure* in my head that he was actually planting his skate on the ice inside the net a little, but it doesn’t look like it at all.
One more thing about his slide into the RVH – because the trailing leg isn’t on the ice, his weight would be entirely centered over his lead-leg knee. Wonder if that gets him to the post faster (even though it’s probably harder to arrive on balance).
Following up again for anyone who’d be interested – I’ve tried this technique a lot, and one thing I’ll say is that it’s really hard to push off the pot back to the top of the crease. The reason is that when you’re pushing against the post or the ice with your blade/the bottom of your foot, you’re using all the muscles in your leg, whereas the shin-rvh (RaskVH?) only lets you use your quads really, so you have way less strength. It’s like comparing how much you can press a dumbbell above you (like a bench press) to how much you can lift on just a tricep kickback.
Pushing off the post cleanly with your shin feels a bit like when you flick your foot to control a soccer ball while juggling and not like when you try to kick a ball hard. I got the most speed and distance away from the post by letting the push be the final part of a chain of movements in my leg.
Because you have less strength, your balance and timing seem to matter. When I was transitioning to the top of the crease or post-to-post, it was even more important (than regular RVH) to get my chest leaning over my lead knee/to kinda lead with my head a little. So if you slide into the post and want to change directions you can but you need to time it right, because your body is going to prepare for the movement before the shin push-off. It’s a little harder to sit in the RVH position and push out whenever you want.
Finally, it was also very important to get my elbow outside the post to control how much you hinge and stop yourself just piling into your net.