Joseph Woll Pro-Read 9

THE SCENARIO

We’ll continue with Woll is facing an Ottawa Senators power play, with the puck on the stick of skilled defenseman Jake Sanderson near the top of the left face-off circle:

Sanderson has time and space with the puck here, but Woll isn’t really coming off his goal line much at all – can you see why that might be the case? What are the primary threats?

Are there any set plays from there you can envision that might require being deep?

THE SAVE

Ask yourself the same questions as you watch the entire sequence:

Seeing the pass down and the ensuing save on the pass across, can you see now why Woll’s initial depth made more sense? Did anything else stand out about his movements and depth decisions, either before or after the initial save going left to right?

THE PRO READ

Now let’s check in with Woll for the full breakdown and his keys to managing this play:

It starts with that depth decision we teased at the beginning.

“The thing I like most about this play is my depth,” Woll said. “So if you see he gets the puck at the flank and I am basically on the goal line because we know with our team pre-scout they like to go down to Brady [(Tkachuk) and they do a lot of down and ins. It’s a different play if I am at the top of the crease but you’ll see when they go down to him, I don’t even have to transition into the post. I’m already there, which makes it a calm and quick play.”

As Woll said, that might not have been the case earlier in his career, which likely would have left him transitioning into his post as Tkachuk is already making a play the other way.

“I’m still transitioning into the post as he’s getting that and then I’m not ahead of the play anymore. The fact I can be already on my post before he gets the puck, helps so much.”

Woll also talked about the back-handed, glove-on-pad seal he used there, something he said he learned from watching Carey Price play with the Montreal Canadiens.

“If he’s that tight where you are trying to close all holes, that’s become second nature,” Woll said, noting if there is more of a shot he faces the pocket out, which we see on the second walk out from Tkachuk above the goal line at the end of the save video.

Back to the initial Tkachuk play from the goal line and the push across:

“It’s all the eyes and trying to stay down on the puck and I did a good job of staying over it and not leaning too far back and I think you really cut down a lot of it when you can stay over the puck,” he said. “It got a bit desperate but I like how I contained the desperation.”

Woll explained what “staying over it” means versus pulling the shoulders back to get tall,

“It keeps your center of gravity kind of over your knees as opposed to coming back on your ankles and when you get a bit stuck. I think there is a time and a place for both but in that play, where it is desperation I am really just trying to get over and cut everything down I think. I like being over the puck like that,” Woll said.

Lastly, he talked about the recovery to get back to his post and in the net after rhe save.

“I think that’s just a habit you build over time,” he said “Curtis (Sanford, the Maple LEafs goalie coach) is big on our recoveries and getting back to your posts and staying contained … every now and then you do have an explosive push like that where you get outside of your crease and it’s just about getting contained as quickly as you can and back in the play. I liked how I got my feet back under me and dint go flying into the corner.”

That allowed him to be in the right spot for the shot that followed.

We’ve got plenty more coming from our extensive video session with Woll. In the meantime, Premium members can review his first five entries into Pro Reads from the first time we sat down with him two years ago, as well as his most recent three entries in the archives using these links below: