Dustin Wolf Pro Reads 16 – Holding Feet versus RVH on Plays Behind Net

THE SEQUENCE

This time we’re looking at an in-zone chance against the St. Louis Blues after a bouncing puck is collected off the boards and behind the net to Wolf’s right:

As you can see in the freeze frame above, that player quickly moves the puck to the other post on Wolf’s left, with an open player out front. With that in mind, if you are Wolf, would you be coming across to that left post on your skates or sliding into that post on your knees and into a Reverse, Reverse-VH or RVH (to cover all the names)?

The bigger question is why? Identify the upside and downside of each choice.

THE SAVE

Now watch the save and ask yourself the same questions:

What did you make of the way Wolf played this coming across on his knees? It’s okay to disagree with the choice if that’s how you feel; Wolf has always been open and honest in these self-assessments and may even agree with you.

Can you see any downside in his choice, even though he made the save?

Can you see how he mitigated some of that downside with the nature of his push?

THE PRO READ

Now let’s hear from Wolf and get his thoughts on how he managed this play:

We may have hinted at it above, but this is a play Wolf might handle differently in the future, and that candidness is part of what we love about these breakdowns.

“Your immediate reaction is to get down into your post and that’s something I’m trying to figure out how to identify earlier,” Wolf said. “In this scenario right now, I don’t think there’s a reason for me to go down. I think I can hold my feet here and just switch sides. It works out okay, where I shift across, and then I’ve got everything sealed and can kind of push off the post to try to take away the far side. But I think that’s the next thing is trying to be able to identify a little sooner if he’s going to be as far back there behind the goal line, I don’t need to be on my knees. Keep your feet. Having access to your feet is better access than being down on your knees.”

Wolf does a great job of identifying how holding his feet might help here.

“If I’m on my feet here, I can just shift down into a butterfly more on top of (Pavel) Buchnevich,” Wolf explained.

As it was, you can see Wolf is still moving into his left post as Buchnevich collects that pass and shoots, increasing his exposure to getting caught moving the wrong way.

Wolf mitigates that exposure by not slamming too hard into that post.

“This is more of just like a shift, a weight shift,” he said.

That gives Wolf a chance to shift back into the rising shot because his momentum isn’t totally sold out in the direction of his left post. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking deeply about how else to manage an increasingly common attack.

“These are plays that you see a lot and there’s a lot of guys that want to be down on their knees right away,” he said. “That’s just how they play and I’m the opposite. I try to hold my feet as much as physically possible. This is a gray area for me, where it’s behind the goal line, you know there’s a guy out front, but again if you can hold your feet, he’s not a threat behind there, the threat’s out front somewhere, so just finding a way to identify it a little sooner to just give yourself more of a chance.”

It’s a great look at the thought process – and consistent need to evolve it – of one of the game’s best, and one more reason Wolf is so good on the ice and in this format.

Look for more from Wolf soon. In the meantime, check out his previous Pro Reads: