60 Percent Rule
- Wait until the puck has traveled approximately 60 percent of the distance before initiating your save movement, reducing premature drops.
- Make saves moving from up to down — reacting from the skates — rather than dropping early and then adjusting upward.
- Patience vertically (not dropping too early) is just as important as patience laterally, yet receives far less coaching attention.
- One-piece downward movement allows large-framed goalies like Hellberg to shift their body more efficiently into shots.
- Henrik Lundqvist taught Hellberg this philosophy during their time together with the New York Rangers.
Magnus Hellberg Detroit photo by Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire
Patience gets talked about a lot as important in the goaltending world, but the big question, one we’ve asked many times on the InGoal Radio Podcast, is how do you teach it?
Detroit Red Wings goalie coach Alex Westlund was working with Magnus Hellberg on a couple of drills after morning skate this week that are designed to do just that, and InGoal was able to catch up with the 6-foot-6 Swedish goalie afterwards to ask him about the focal points.
“Just the patience of not dropping too early,” Hellberg said. “A lot of people talk about the patience left to right, but I think the patience of not dropping too early is huge. And I think it’s something a lot of people don’t put too much effort into because if you look at some goals, it looks like it’s a great shot, but the goalie has dropped before the puck even left the stick.”
The first drill came after some movement, tracking and hands work along the boards, which is another favourite topic here at InGoal. We’ll share that video with both Hellberg and Ville Husso, as well as their thoughts, below but first a look at the patience drill:
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