Drill to help goaltenders with lateral recoveries – adding motion
- Use a shuffle instead of opening up during lateral recoveries to maintain tightness and body control through the push.
- Track the puck into the body and maintain vision over the puck throughout the lateral movement — not just at the point of contact.
- Stay still and trust the push is enough; reaching or over-pushing disrupts body position and leads to loss of control.
- Simple drills like this butterfly-to-shot recovery can encompass multiple critical goaltending concepts including mechanics, vision, and positioning.
- Goalie coaches like Adam Brown use variations within a single drill to address individual technique issues mid-session.
It is amazing how often the drills InGoal Magazine sees being used at the highest level are often very simple, but that doesn’t mean they can’t encompass several crucial skills, including a chance to experiment with and try to perfect new concepts and tactics.
A recent trip to watch the Ontario Reign practice provided another great example.
This lateral recovery drill featured Los Angeles Kings prospect Erik Portillo, Reign goalie coach Adam Brown, and recently signed veteran pro Aaron Dell, and took place while the rest of the team was shooting on Jacob Ingham at the other end. The goalies dropped into a butterfly atop the crease, the recovered across to a shot from Brown inside the faceoff dot, but as you will see in the series of videos and responses below, there are a lot of possible variations.
“This is mostly about getting the mechanics right and getting vision over the puck, tracking into the body, all the small details,” Portillo said. “It’s not a hard drill and he’s shooting in the chest but it’s more about ending over it, having good control in the motion. We talked about not opening up in this one, closing down on it. That was one thing [Dell] did really well, staying tight and trusting the push is enough and being still with the body, not reaching or over pushing.”
We’ll get to Dell but start with Portillo recovering to his right. See if you can identify any changes as the drill progresses. Does anything stand out about the mechanics he talked about?
Unlock the rest of this premium breakdown
Join thousands of goalies, parents, and coaches who train smarter with InGoal.
15+ years as the #1 goaltending resource
Already a member? Log in