Welcome to The Last Line – EPISODE 2 What Creates Elite Goalies? Ian Clark Has the Answer

Welcome back to the Last Line with Ian Clark presented by InGoal Magazine and From the Crease, the new app designed to bring Ian's quarter century of coaching experience and expertise to goalies all over the world. I'm Kevin Woodley from InGoal Magazine, and joining me as he will every episode, this is new number two. Is Ian Clark, former goaltending coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Vancouver Canucks, and since today's topics are gonna go a little international, Modo over in u00d6rnsku00f6ldsvik, in Sweden. You spent some time overseas as well. I believe Marcus invited you over there and you spent a few years with Modo.

I can't remember how many years.

Yeah. Asked me to come in and chip in, I would say. A little bit of consulting work over there with them. We had we actually, you know, spent time, Marcus and I, evaluating goalie coaches and actually recruiting goalie coaches as part of that project. So it wasn't me as the goalie coach as much as it was.

Almost like a director role. Similar. The early days of before there were goalie directors in the NHL. Interestingly enough, we're gonna go with a little aside here. Greatest goalie drill buster of all time.

Was Marcus Naslund high up there? Wow. We got the spot there with that one. I just happen to remember a few where the shooters were supposed to do certain things and Marcus was never doing certain things.

Well, you know, you end up with with players like Marcus Naslund or Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and, you know, they have they're so innate to score. It's very hard to ask them to do something that is not in their nature. It was in their nature to score goals. So when you take shooters that are high talent offensive players, it's very difficult to say, no. Don't score.

Go do this instead. And it's almost counter to their intelligence and counter to their their muscle memory.

Alright. So this is the Last Line, as in the last line of defense, as in that is what we do here at the goalie union. We are the last line, keeping the puck out of the net, all the pressure that comes with it. And actually, we're gonna talk a little bit about your international experience in this episode. I don't wanna get into that.

But that actually brought me just top of the head. Shoot to score. Time and place for it in drills as a coach. As we in our first episode, we talked a lot about how dynamic offense is in the NHL. Part of that is the types of plays that teams are bringing, no longer just funneling pucks to the net, but looking for East West opportunities, looking for backdoors, looking for things that disrupt the goaltenders, timing, rhythm, and ability to find pucks.

We also see an elite level of shooter at all levels of the game right now. Mhmm. There's a time and place, I'm guessing, in drills where you just shoot it where you're told to shoot it, the goalie's getting there and and working on a certain skill set. And there's a time and place where you open the car doors and let them shoot to score. Finding that line in a progression within drills.

Mhmm. I know it's a tough one to answer because there are no absolutes. It depends on the situation, the drill, the goalies, the skill, all those levels. But is there a rule of thumb in terms of percentage wise? How much you want goalies just facing routine and how much you want guys to be drill busters, but should score.

So as you said, it really is dependent on where the skill is in the life cycle of the skill. So that's one item. Number two is it's the level of the goaltender. Okay? So I I I use something that I kinda came up with.

It's called the bridge development method.

Bridge. See, this is part of this project is going to be adding items into our InGoal dictionary for goaltending. Bridge development method is a new one for me. I think I've heard it before, but I'm gonna need you to explain it to our So,

essentially, it's the life cycle of a skill that is being brought into a goaltenders game. I'm sure it can be used in other walks of life, but we're gonna I created it as part of goaltending and coaching. So we have at the one side so it's called the bridge method because we gotta go over the bridge to get to the other side. So this that's the bridge method. So on the one side of the bridge, we have introduction of concept.

K.

Step one, on the bridge. Okay. Can you

can we can we throw examples in there? I will. Okay.

On the on the way to the opposite, that is the first step onto the bridge and on the destination, the far side of the bridge, we have instinctive execution in dynamic, unpredictable, pressurized gameplay.

Okay.

That's the opposite side of the bridge.

That's where

we gotta get to.

That bridge. I I probably fair to say I haven't taken very many steps over to the other side of the

fence, but not followed the bridge development development method personally.

He's he's tried. He just can't get to the other side. But, hey, this is not a show about me. Let's see.

Introduction of concept. We then move to goaltending coach is still, of course, in somewhat control of this as is the goalie because the goalie can be self guided learning. But we're gonna assume that there's a coach involved. So we have introduction of concept, step one. Our next step is introductory drills.

Okay? Possibly some self development drills as well by the goalie to maximize repetitions. These are very controlled environments. Okay? And because the coach is looking for looking to give the goaltender the opportunity to begin to acquire the skill, the drills are set in a progressive manner to begin that skill acquisition.

So it's probably predictable, it's probably simple, and thus, these are introductory drills. They might be there might be skating patterns. There might be some shooting in it, but they're introductory and very predictable.

So the goalie knows what's coming. He knows where he's going from spot to spot and where it finishes, essentially.

There's no real attack dynamics happening here. We are looking to begin this is the skill is in its infancy still.

Okay.

So where do we go from there? Let's assume we've introduced the concept, the goaltender understands the concept, we've begun the skill acquisition in that infancy stage and that introductory stage and we're starting to acquire the technical attributes of the skill. Now, we're going to shift to more dynamic drills. So often in those introductory drills, it's often the coach doing the shooting. So the coach has full control of the environment, the goalie coach.

Now, let's imagine the goalie coach is still controlling the environment but now we have other shooters. You call potentially drill busters. Right. Okay? But the point being is we're using other shooters, we're creating a little bit more dynamic but it's still a controlled There's still a focus in the drill to help acquire the skill.

So the goaltending coach is still controlling environment but we have added complexity, added dynamic to begin to expand that skill out of infancy. Now, we also then have and we're gonna shorten this description a bit, we now have the goaltender has to take the baton from the goalie coach because now what's our next more dynamic moment? That's team practice. So now the goalie has to take the baton from the goalie coach and has to look to expand that skill further into an environment that isn't the goalie coach's or the goalie's environment.

Uncontrolled. Right.

So now we're getting increased unpredictability, increased dynamic, and the environment itself is not exclusively built around that skill.

There are other elements.

Right. And it's the goalie's job to identify those opportunities to move that skill into that new environment. That's a goalie's job. Yeah, if the goalie coach is out there, maybe they can support that endeavor, but the reality is that's not always going to be the case. Often goalie coaches are working in skill specific sessions and not on team practice.

Therefore, the goalie is going to have to take some ownership of this next step. Okay? Our next step, here we are, introduction of concept, introductory drills, more dynamic drills, okay? We call them bridge drills. And now we're into team practice and applying what has been acquired in team practice to take it to another level.

Guess what comes next? We're on the downside of the bridge. We have what we call game emergence. K. Game emergence is when the goalie and or the coach, they're like, there it is.

It happens. It happens. Instinctual.

It may not be perfect, but we start to see, k, infancy in gameplay. Alright. In other words, we call it game emergence. And as we continue to go, we see further and further evidence of the acquisition of the skill in the most dynamic scenarios that occur for a goaltender, which is now you don't even have your teammates shooting on you. You've got opponents that a, wanna score and wanna win.

And so ultimately, we need to get across the bridge and to the other side, which is instinctive, dynamic, unpredictable, pressurized gameplay.

And shoot to score in a controlled environment is a part of that process.

Correct. So, back to your point, obviously in those very introductory drills, we're not necessarily shooting to score.

Because you want them to feel good about everything that leads up to the safe execution.

And we need the repetitions to master that. So as we move into those more dynamic bridge drills, we are now beginning, maybe the first phase of it is a specified shot, maybe it's not shoot to score, but we need to begin to get some intensity in that moment to test that skill and then refine it from there. And, of course, as we keep going, and certainly when you get into team practice, players are shooting scores. So you've got to help your goalie get to that place where they can take that next step across the bridge.

We started this. What brought this to my mind and led to this line of questioning was a discussion about Marcus Naslund and your work in Sweden and Marcus as a drill buster. I love Marcus Naslund, by the way. One of my favorite players of all time that I've got to cover here in Vancouver. Incredible person.

Yes. As good yeah. As great as he was as a goal scorer, and that wrist shot fooled a lot of guys at the highest level for a long time, an even better person. Quality of shooter, level of shooter, maybe. You talk about team when we're in a team dynamic in season.

What about in the summer?

Mhmm.

You're probably not throwing Marcus out against twelve year olds. Do you have any thoughts on, like, like, hiring shooters? We see different camps and different schools hire, like, say, WHL shooters for certain like, where where do you find that balance? Is should your 14 year old be facing WHL shots? Should your 12 year old be facing 14 year old shots?

Like, I know, again, it's a tough one to necessarily pin down to exact numbers and age, but do you have a rule of thumb about the level of your shooters comparative to the level of your goaltenders?

Well, you need your shooters to be better higher level than your goalie because you can always bring your skill level down to the goal. Like, you can bring the intensity down. Shooters to dial down. Right. At least as a, you know, the first few sets.

Right.

Right? So it's very hard to take a shooter that is less than your goalie and ask them to be better than your goalie. So Okay. You know, I think that's just common sense. Like, at the end of the day, in a perfect world, and it's not it's it's tough, but, you know, goalie coaches, goalie school, sometimes it's tough to get shooters.

And so it's, you know, it's a but I would always strive to have a higher level shooter and ask them to taper it down. K? But then, you know, you you want your shooters to enjoy that experience as well, so we need to get to a shoot to score, and we need I'm a big live rebound guy. And so that's a big thing for me too is, okay, we are because I'm a big save process guy, which is preparation, save execution, recovery, organizing, post save. So to get the goaltender to fall through on their save process, we want to begin to play out rebounds.

But the other benefit, Kevin, of doing that is we what I will tell goaltenders is the first half of the drill, prescribed portion of the drill, that's for me. I'm trying to help you acquire the skill. The rebounds? That's for you. Go Where

in the bridge? Because you can work on the skill and have that set save at the end. Do you start playing rebounds out even earlier or does that take their attention away from the skill acquisition on the bridge? Like, where on that bridge do you add rebounds?

Yeah. I think generally speaking, you know, when you're in that very introductory introduction of concept, okay, into introductory drills, you know, you might play, you might feel your goalie is ready for some simple rebounds to start connecting some moments to whatever it is you're doing. But certainly, as you get into drills with your shooters, okay, and adding some complexity, adding some of that in, then I think you're beginning to want to add that in because it helps balance not just technique not just technique. We need competitiveness. We need some of that other stuff to begin to balance development.

If all we do is technique, technique, technique, technique, technique, your goalie is going to be put into a box where all they're looking for is every save to come from a program that has been prescribed to them. And that's not the way hockey works.

If all we do is technique, technique, technique, technique, technique, your goalie is going to be put into a box where all they're looking for every save to come from a program that has been prescribed to them. And that's not the way hockey works because, you know, we need to have the ability to technique helps support what we're doing, creates consistency, creates infrastructure to what we're doing, but there just is times when we're gonna have to find another solution.

And that segues actually beautifully. You should be the host here because that is the perfect segue to where I was going, and that is international experience. Mhmm. And some of the difference that we're seeing I mentioned your time in Sweden.

Mhmm.

What I didn't mention is obviously your work with Sergei Bobrovsky and the Columbus Blue Jackets led you to introductions in Russia with some of the coaches he worked with and then with other, Daniil Tarasov, his dad, some of the different coaches over there. We see this push towards goaltenders from Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia right now. Areas where when I talk to some of the goalies, they do get coaching, but when you talk to a lot of Russian goalies, talk not about technique, but about just skating, like sort of just skating edges, skating edges, not even pucks.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

And it what do you see as the differences in development models from your experience in those countries, those different countries? How it compares to the way we've set things up over here in North America, whether it's Canada, The States. Like, what are some of the lessons and takeaways that you see that have led us to a place where, you know, so many NHL teams are looking to those other countries to find talent? Big question.

It's a big question. It's a you know, and I think I'm fairly well suited for this because as you also know, I was heavily involved with Team Canada for a number of years. Right. And so, you know, we're talking about we're talking about the late nineties into the early two thousands, mid two thousands. And, you know, we've talked about Sweden.

We've you know, I've spent a lot of time in Russia and, you know, had the the pleasure of working, obviously, with some great goalies, you know, but we're talking about, obviously, Sergei Bobrovsky. You mentioned Daniil Tarasov, Ilya Sorokin. So I actually spent some time not just coaching goalies, but actually kind of watching how these different geographic regions manage goaltender development. Some are very institutionalized. Some are much more are less institutionalized.

And where does that take us? So as you know, Kevin, I'm a big fan of the seven ingredients to elite level goaltending. And I'm just gonna touch on this. That's a whole it's a whole discussion.

There's not a whole another show, but just because you've introduced it, walk us through the seven. For those that haven't heard it before, we've talked about this on the InGoal Radio Podcast, but let's let's bring it to the Last Line.

It's important here only because of how I can parlay it or relate it to this. And so I'm just gonna quickly go through it. We'll do it alphabetically because I'm a big believer that none of them are more important than another one.

Okay.

Athleticism, competitiveness, instinct and IQ, mental capacity, reactivity, technique, visual talent. There's our seven, alphabetical. Someone might want to argue that mental capacity is maybe the number one and that may be true. But the point being is we don't want to I have been, over the course of my time, seen goalies that are successful because of their athleticism. I've seen goalies that are successful because of their competitiveness.

I've seen goalies successful because of their reads and their vision and these kinds. So I don't like getting into a situation where we're ranking the importance of these. What I like to see is a balanced set of those seven ingredients. So what I find is if we're in a highly institutionalized, very technical environment, we're basically telling the goaltender subliminally, subconsciously, that technique is number one. Okay.

Okay? I'm a big believer that technique is the bones of your game. It's kinda like the bones of your house. Like a foundation. It's your foundation, it's the wall studs, it's the ceiling joists, it's the roof, you know, it's the bones of your game.

But it's not all of your game. And so what I find, and we do see a lot of European goalies over here in North America playing at the junior levels now, at obviously the minor pro levels, and of course in the National Hockey League. And what I'm seeing a little bit is a little bit of balance across those seven inputs because it's not so institutionalized from a technical perspective. We're getting a little bit more athleticism. We're getting a little bit of more freedom to play and find solutions.

They have good technique, but they also have built that around the athletic, competitive, instinctive, reactive elements as well. And of course, that's I'm a huge believer, as you know, in that seven ingredient model. And it is my belief that goalie coaches need to, of course, hone technique. But while they're doing that, we want to also really mentor and nurture those other ingredients as well.

Are there some countries that are I don't want to make this comparison, I don't want to make this a ranking or anything, but some just more or less institutionalized than others when you do like, when you talk about these countries coming from Europe, are you talking about more Russia, Czech, Slovakia right now, compared to, say, like, Finland, Sweden? Where do they rank on that institutionalized

Well, think you're, you know, the natural I mean, I don't think it's surprising. You're gonna see a little bit more institutionalization in Canadian goaltending and Swedish goaltending. And, you know, I think The US is starting to move into that range. And you're going to have less of that super formal hard core institutionalization in some of those Eastern European countries. So that's what I would say to that.

But again, we can't lose sight of the value of technique. We just need to balance the development.

And am listening to you, like the balance, it doesn't mean because the tendency from the outside is to be like, Oh, too many goalie coaches. Or we coach them all the same or too much technique from the goalie coaches that do work with them at too young an age. It's a you can still have goalie coaching, just be cognizant of all aspects of the development, not just focusing on the technique. And my question would be, is part of that answer to not focus too much on the technique too soon? Yeah.

Again, I know there that's the one thing about goaltending. There are no absolutes. So I keep asking him questions for specific details, but these all have there's there's sliding scales on all this. Right?

Well, first of all, there's some goaltenders that are superbly technical, and that is their number one ingredient.

Okay.

Okay? So Right.

Say that. Have a ton of success with it. Absolutely.

Right. There are some, and we can go back in history and look at goalies. You know, if you you know, I'm I'm just throwing names out there for fun. You know, if you were to bring out,

you know So throw names out there for ratings and controversy. No. I'm just kidding.

But, you know, but but we'll go back sometime. Like, you know, Dominik Hasek, one of the greatest goalies in the history of the game, unquestionably. Yes. You know, where and I'm not putting him on that scale. But where would the average listener put Dominik Hasek, for those that are old enough to remember Dominik Hasek, where would they put him?

Would they put him, you know, what was his number one ingredient? Was it athleticism? Was it compete? Was it mental capacity? Was it technique?

It probably wasn't technique. Was it instinct and IQ? Probably.

Right, Right. And so funny enough, and I'll tell, like, his instinct and creativity and that came out with techniques that we wouldn't think of as quote unquote technical, but there was a method to the madness. They did so with taking away time and space in ways that just didn't look like everybody else.

Right. So were was you know, anytime you see something that isn't typically prescribed, you're kinda like, what is this person And the reality of it is and this is why I place the the you know, it's not just instinct, it's instinct and IQ.

Right.

Dominik Hasek was one of the most intelligent goalies ever to play the game. So we didn't we saw him do things that were surprising, sometimes alarming. Yeah. And and we were like, what is happening here? The reality

Brain like a computer, body like a slinky. That was the I don't know who to credit for that line, but it's one of the greatest descriptions of Dominik Hasek I've ever heard.

Brain like a computer, body like a slinky. That was the I don't know who to credit for that line, but it's one of the greatest descriptions of Dominik Hasek I've ever heard.

Dominik Hasek knew the value of middle net as well as anybody. And, okay, so I just want to say that. But my point being is part of, you know, we talk about hockey IQ when we're talking about skaters. Goaltending IQ, that's another item we can add to the lexicon because Dominik Hasek's goaltending IQ was out of this world, and the reason was almost like an advanced goaltending life form. That's why it looked so odd to everybody.

But at the end of the day, some of the things he did have led us to where we are today.

And the I'm gonna go now, I don't know if I'm right, but I remember him sharing this story and probably one of the coolest moments for me as a writer was getting to ask him about the barrel roll save and having him explain, like, the blocker going out and that being forcing a guy who was on his forehand and trying to it was always a specific situation, and this was his solution, and it looked different, but as he explained it to me, and I'm paraphrasing obviously, and it was a long time ago in the Detroit Red Wings locker room, and like I said, it's a while and I'm old, but I still sort of picture it because it was such a cool memory as a young writer talking about how as soon as he forced with the blocker, that prevented that forced the player to sort of pull the puck in in a way where he couldn't elevate. And then as he came over in the barrel roll with his arm over the top, and then the torso went up in the air and the pads upright, what did you have? You had an inverted butterfly.

Lay arms out taking away the bottom of the ice, legs straight up, taking away the top after he'd forced this player to basically get into a position where he couldn't elevate the puck. And by the time he reestablished that ability, he had his vertical coverage just in a way that didn't look like every other butterfly goal.

And directly in the middle of the net.

In the middle of the net. So, yeah. The power of middle net. Yes. And so one of the few chances where I've got a good story to share as part of the last line and one of my favorite goaltenders of all time, and and and again, it speaks to the importance of that that IQ and and and problem solving and creativity.

So my point coming back to our discussion was, you know, where you know, if we you know, I and I don't wanna get into a lot of names right now, but you can place goalies on this because every goalie's recipe is a little bit Right. In your case, your barrel roll in your level

Is basically just falling down. Yes. It is. It's it's a little uglier.

So you haven't mastered that move

mastered the barrel. It's more of a and honestly, this is the way I would describe it. If you're old enough to remember the movie Toy Story, you know, where Buzz Lightyear flies and Woody looks up at him and says, that's not flying. That's falling with style. That's how I play goal.

And although a lot of people

would argue about the style.

So they're not saying that's not goaltending?

That's falling with style. And the style is usually limited to my gear, not my actually execution. So enough about me, however. So where do we outside of making sure we pay attention to more than just the technical, is there like, do you think it's an age thing? Or is that part of the formula?

Like, let's not introduce too much technique or too much in age? Or let is it just a matter of making sure we always maintain that balance amongst the seven? Nurture all seven and let the goalies develop strengths within them.

Here's a little framework. Okay. Okay? We may as well make this practical a little bit. Okay.

Here's a little framework. Typically, when I work with a goalie, I'm gonna have some technical drill. We're gonna be working at the craft, which is partly working at technique. Play live rebound. That creates some competitive moments.

Competitiveness is number two on our alphabetical list. You can each compete. Right. So that stuff is important. Shooting to score, that can teach reactivity or support reactivity.

Because if all I'm going to do is be a coach that's just dumping pucks into the goalie's belly and torso, are they learning to react? Are they learning to be equally competent to both their interior and exterior if every puck is given to them?

Right. All roads lead to beer league. And even in beer league, they don't hit you in the gut all the time.

So here's another one. Every practice plan now, you know, sometimes you only have small pockets of time. But let's say I'm out there and I've got thirty minutes to work with a goalie. I'm going to do some technical work. I'm gonna do some competitive work, partly through live rebounds.

I might even do a competitive drill, and I will always have a drill that is geared towards visual habits. So now we have hit technique. We have hit some competitiveness. We have hit some reactivity, and we've hit visual talent. Four of our seven right there.

Okay? And you probably can mix in some mental capacity there. And guess what happens when you're competing? You're probably forced into some athletic moments, so that's interesting. And the precursor to great instinct, which by my definition is the ability to break from your program to find a creative solution to the problem.

That's my the Hasek-Brodeur rule. The precursor to instinctive play is compete. So pretty much we've hit them all just by using that format, and that can help goalie coaches and goalies and hockey coaches create environments where we're blending and balancing those inputs.

And associations and international organizations, entire countries. So in other words, it doesn't have to be about, oh, too many goalie coaches at too young an age.

Right.

It's about what we're doing with that time as goalie coaches in terms of nurturing more than just the technical.

And here's one last point I want to say about this. What happens a lot and this is, again, it's natural technique is very tangible. So I know that if I am going, as a coach, if I can go get my goaltender to execute 25 repetitions of this skill extremely well, I'm probably going to have some growth in that skill. The whole idea that repetition is the mother of all skill, okay, concept. So that's very tangible.

It's kinda like going in the gym. If I go into the gym and I do three sets of 10 of this, whatever that target physiological acquisition is, I'm probably over the course of time going to get better, I'm gonna increase my strength, increase my stability, increase my balance, whatever it is that I'm working on. Very tangible. So now I'm gonna ask you, and this is where we run into some problems, how do I repeat instinct? How do I repeat mental capacity?

How do I repeat reactivity? It's a little bit more ambiguous. It's a little bit tougher to put your finger on. That's why they're called the intangibles of the position. And so goalie coaches really need to begin to embrace this broader set of inputs and find ways within the environment that they're in control of to, as I just shown a framework, create an environment for growth and nurturing of some of these other elements and for that goalie coach to really embrace those conceptually.

And again, what happens is for a lot of people it's so tangible, that's all they get focused in on is the tangibles at the expense of the intangibles.

Right. It's funny, I often talk about when I'm asked about goalies as a quote unquote analyst on radio and things like that, I always say that the simplest thing to see is the technique. And it's almost like a default for me, who's not as evolved as an analyst, that this is what I can see, but that's the easy stuff, and that's the evidence stuff. All the other things can go into it. Those are a little tougher to see from a I call myself simple, but a simplistic approach to it.

But again, it's that you can see technique. And so at the end of It's the easy one. Right, Because it's very tangible.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

What's the

only one I spot half

the time? And we can literally sit here and take five of the greatest goalies of the last few decades, and you're going to plot them on there and how many of them are you going to place on the technique as their number leading input in their recipe? Was it Martin Brodeur? No. Okay.

Well, Martin Brodeur was an incredible mental capacity goalie. Incredible instinct, incredible compete. And, you know, we are to react reactor, like, at the end of the day, you're probably not putting it on technique. And we already didn't put it on Dominik Hasek's scale.

Right.

Okay? Do we wanna put it on Patrick Roy's scale or are we gonna put that somewhere else too?

It's probably maybe a bigger part of it, but maybe that's just the cliche of him and Allaire.

That's just his but that's just his recipe. So his recipe maybe had a little more of technique in it, but I'm not sure it was number one. There you go. So we can literally go through this. Andrei Vasilevskiy, are you putting technique there or are going to put athleticism there?

Put athleticism there.

So Although the technique is also exceptional. Of course. Right. So, again, that proves out what we're talking about.

Okay. When you're in the countries that are less institutionalized, what have you seen of their focus? Russia, for example. Where was the focus with the young goaltenders and why do you think that led to the evolution of some of those things? Because I I don't know that they're necessarily looking at the seven keys themselves.

What is it that's leading to the success?

Well, did share them with them.

Okay, there you go. So perhaps.

So it's an important point and I want to say this as well, that the other thing that happens, there's multiple phenomenon that go on. And one of them is emulation. And what we have, we have goaltenders like Sergei Bobrovsky. We have goaltender who was the first Russian goalie ever to win a Vezina Trophy.

And did it twice.

And did it twice. We have Andrei Vasilevsky. We have

Stanley Cups. Ilya Sorokin, a

quietly incredible goaltender. Best in the

game right now. Make sure you check out InGoalmag half season. He should win the Vezina. We've got Igor Shesterkin.

Igor Shesterkin.

Have a heart trophy on his trophy mantle.

K. And we can go on. Yeah. So the the so what happens is young players I'm not even gonna say goalies. Young players, their favorite players are these guys.

Right. So, you know, we know what happens. You know, if my favorite player is Wayne Gretzky, I wanna go be Wayne Gretzky. If my favorite player is Sergei Bobrovsky, I'm gonna go be a goalie. And so what is it?

Saw this in Finland with Miikka Kiprusoff and

Pekka Rinne.

And Sweden with Henrik Lundqvist and his success

in the race. With Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy and all of the All this stuff. So the emulation effect is a phenomenon in addition to everything else we're talking about. And so it kind of goes in geographic cycles. And so, you know, right now, the young Russian net minders have these great role models to emulate.

And they're excited about them, and they're very popular over there. And so that's a thing as well.

Okay. We have riffed for close to half an hour. We're almost at the end of the show and I haven't gotten although some of the questions tie right into this perfectly. So one of the questions that we got submitted for this week and remember folks, you can submit your questions to the Last Line at InGoalmag dot com

The first line.

On email. The first line? Not the first line. The last line

at InGoalmag. That's for the trendsetter. The first line is for trendsetter.

And now we're in TrendKeeper.

TrendKeeper, so we do last line.

I use easy confuse. The last line at ingoalmag.com is where you can send the emails or check out our socials. We'll be posting opportunities to ask questions of InClark on there. And one of the questions that we got for this week, it kinda sorta loosely ties in, but at what age should goalies start to learn post play? Mhmm.

And I'm guessing they meant they just said post play, but I'm guessing they meant reverse because that's such a big part of post play. It's probably two different questions because, of course, you gotta be able to move into your posts Mhmm. On your feet even at a young age. But you probably get this a lot, and again, it's another one of those no absolute answers, but I'm gonna ask it anyways.

Well, first of all, I'm very appreciative of your language there because you know what I'm talking about.

Yes.

So I have always used the term reverse. Of course, we know that other people used the So term just so we're clear here. So that's so coming to your point, let's start with a general answer to that. Yep. Okay.

Net play, of course, is one of the essential tactical categories of goaltending, whether you are playing a U8 level or whether you're playing at an NHL level. So post play must be incorporated as part of the goaltenders' technical and tactical development. So that's unequivocally. And fundamental to good net play, okay, at the very basic level is what we call clean entry to post and, of course, tracking behind the net. Fundamental.

Those are two of the core fundamentals. Doesn't matter if you're a national hockey league goalie, doesn't matter if you use the reverse, doesn't matter if you're on your feet. You need to enter clean, and you need to be able to track that activity behind the net. Those are like at the very bare basics. The

So how you do those things just depend on age and skill level? Is that the progression?

Well, again, we've seen this with the butterfly. Very young goalies being asked to play the butterfly. We're now seeing very young, smaller goalies being asked to go into the reverse position and start learning that element. You know, at the end of the day, you know, I would be an advocate of a goaltender using their feet more especially at a young age because how are we ever gonna learn to be patient? Which we've talked about in our last episode of the last line, patience and neutrality.

How are we ever gonna learn to be patient as a young goaltender if we're constantly leaving or we're on our knees the whole time? And so I'm a big advocate of feet. Remember, feet drive hands. You heard me say that before. Yes.

And so it's important that, especially for a young goalie, that they are being, again, blended a bit here. Not every solution has to be on the knees. So I would say that's super important. And I think, again, we can blend some of that. Of course, they're gonna have to go down to make saves, but they should also be taught to make saves on their feet.

Right. I literally do drills with NHL goalies. And it is literally, one of the drills is literally called one, two, three. First shot is always made on the feet. Second shot is made going down, third shot is made from the down position.

That's how you can blend things. Now, it's a warm up drill.

I know. Okay. Now I got a question with this. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull on this even though we're gonna be over time here, and I wanna get back to the the reverse. But you want there's a story behind why you added the saves on the feet as part of that.

There is. Do you want a general version of that, or should I give you a specific version? Oh, man. The specifics really good. The specifics really good, though.

Okay. So if we save

We'll do a quick one.

Save specific for next time, we'll get into

next give a quick calls

on notes. Alright.

So Sergei Bobrovsky, after his very first Vizner trophy, he came to me. He's like, Clarky, what are we gonna do to get better?

There's that that growth mindset.

Yeah. He's got hey. I got an idea. He's like, how about we study the five best goalies in the world? I'm like, Bob, you just won the Vizner trophy.

He's like, no. No. No, Clark. He the five other best goalies in the world. So we identified who those were.

At the time, we picked out names like Touker Ask and we had Henry Lundqvist and Carey Price, obviously these guys, Jonathan Quick, and we studied these five goalies. And one of the things that was evident in that study, because what Bob wanted to do was he's like, Clarky, let's steal one thing from every one of them.

I love it.

And so this is the best of a trophy winner. Yeah. And so This is

how you get to two.

Yes. And so we I studied it and we went through it together and we identified. But one of the incredible things that I noticed, and all of these goalies could have been characterized as butterfly goalies. You could. Could.

Would you characterize them that way?

I mean, I don't know that there's anybody that isn't at this point.

So one of the things I realized as I studied them, in every game, every one of them made at least one standing save.

Where they held their feet

and then dropped. Did not go down. Made the save on their feet. Every one of them in every single game I watched, and I watched maybe, like, three to five games of each one of them. Every one of them in every game made some standing saves.

That surprises me. Probably surprised you.

Well, it

Led to?

It led to this kind of a gain. Notice we keep talking about balanced development. We talked about the seven ingredients. We talked about neutrality and patience. We talked about blending work on the feet and going down on your knees in this post integration or post play discussion.

We have to balance development.

And that one, two, three, the first ones on the feet in the warm up drill.

Warm up drill, one, two, three. First shot is standing, save. Second shot is going down, save. Third shot is making the save from your knees because of course we have to do that too.

K. I love that. I'm glad I pulled on that thread. I'm gonna do a lot of this folks on the last line. But before we let you go, I need you to go back to the reverse and the feet and the down and that blend and keep picking up there after I pulled you away from it.

Yeah. So I

get finish that off.

You know, I think that, you know, you're what you're you know, should a goalie be starting to use the reverse at a young age is what you're really asking. Yeah. So Or

what age?

And I would say there's nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, how are you gonna a young goalie, how are they gonna stop a wraparound? You know, there's plays where that reverse position is perfectly viable for a smaller younger goalie if they're competent at it to use that position so they can acquire that skill. Now, if the player's coming down the wall, it's what we call a from above play.

Above the goal line?

Yeah. So if the player's coming from above, there's all this lateral footwork as we come down towards our post, have to integrate into the post. Maybe that super small going, let's say the puck is further from the net, if they go down and create that low profile, maybe they're going expose a lot of upper net. Maybe we're going to have a different answer to that at a young age. Compared

to a goalie you've got who's six foot six or

six Yeah. Four in the Right. But they might use the reverse on that wraparound because the play is super close to the net and that low profile doesn't harm them. So this is the balanced development again. So should a goalie that is seven years old, that is three foot six be a full reverse goalie?

No. Probably not.

Right.

Okay? Do we need them to have a a greater repertoire of skills, and do we want them to start do we use their feet exceptionally well? Of course, we do. So I think that as a goaltender matures, as they go on their development journey, as they go on their evolution as a goaltender, not just technically but anatomically, physiologically, their met visual game, their ability to read moments. They may that proportion of reverse in their game can increase over time.

I promise, folks, we're gonna get to more of your questions. We only had time for that one today because the answer it's my fault. I pulled them away on that answer to another one. This has been the last line. I'm Kevin Woodley.

He's in Clark. InGoal Magazine from the crease. We're gonna keep bringing you the show. We're gonna keep answering your questions. We're gonna keep talking about trends around the game, both at the National Hockey League level and at all the levels below it.

We're gonna keep talking goaltending. So thank you for joining us. Make sure you check out all our socials, submit your questions, hit like, subscribe, all those things you're supposed to do that I need to learn when I sign off. Ian, thanks for your time today.

Thank you, Kevin. Always great to be with you.