ProTips with Devon Levi
- Devon Levi structures practice sessions by starting with technical 'programming' before progressing to dynamic, compete-based drills using the same foundational principles.
- Levi recommends ending the practice session the day before a game with a compete drill like rebound to shift focus from technique to instinct.
- Letting go of technical thoughts on game day and simply reading the play is, according to Levi, the hardest but most important skill in goaltending.
- Professional goaltenders face less recovery time between games than college goalies, making it even more critical to prioritize foundational technical work when practice time with a goalie coach is available.
- Goalies struggling to find the technical-to-compete balance can simply ask their coach to add a compete drill at the end of practice.
Devon Levi’s last Pro Reads video breakdown ended with a purely reactionary save in tight, which led to a great discussion on finding the balance between the technical elements that put him in a position to make it, and when to let go of those and just play on instinct.
“Not every save is going to be super clean or super technically sound,” Levi explained in the video. “You try to in practice, as much as you can, work on your technical game. But I think going into a game, being able to kind of drop all that stuff and let it show up, probably the hardest thing to do in goaltending, but also the most important, it to let that go. And when game day comes, it’s just time to read the play and just compete.”
So how do we do that as goalies? How do we help train that as goalie coaches?
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