Pro Tips: Managing Your Game and a New Coach
- Working with multiple goalie coaches at a young age builds adaptability and exposes goalies to different techniques and perspectives.
- Alex Nedeljkovic worked with at least three different goalie coaches before reaching the OHL, which he credits for his professional success.
- NHL goalies facing new coaches — like Nedeljkovic moving from Paul Schonfelder in Carolina to Jeff Salajko in Detroit — must actively manage the adjustment period.
- The 2021 NHL offseason saw unprecedented goalie movement, with over 25 netminders changing teams via trade, expansion draft, buyout, or free agency.
- Youth goalies changing teams or coaches during summer should approach new instruction with openness rather than resistance to different methods.
photo Jaylynn Nash/Icon Sportswire
It’s been a dizzying week for NHL goalies and those who track their careers.
An unprecedented level of movement among the puck-stopping fraternity included six trades highlighted by the Vegas Golden Knights giving reigning Vezina Trophy winner to the Chicago Blackhawks to free up salary cap space, the Carolina Hurricanes trading playoff starter Alex Nedeljkovic to the Detroit Red Wings, and Arizona Coyotes sending Darcy Kuemper to the Colorado Avalanche; the Seattle Kraken selecting Chris Drieger, Vitek Vanacek and Joey Daccord in the Expansion Draft; contract buyouts of Braden Holtby and Martin Jones; and 16 NHL goalies (and another nine on two-way deals) changing teams in free agency, including Vezina finalist Philipp Grubauer signing in Seattle and the Kraken trading Vancek back to the Washington Capitals.
We’ll leave it to others to judge the winners and losers of that crazy game of musical chairs but we did see an opportunity to share a lesson that is about to become relevant for the goalies wearing new uniforms, and applies to an increasing number of youth goalies too at this time of the year: The importance of managing your approach to working with a new coach.
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