InGoal Radio Episode 68: Devan McConnell, New Jersey Devils Director of Performance Science & Reconditioning Coach

Intro

It's a busy week around the InGoal Radio Podcast studio and InGoal Magazine. We have webinars and we have podcasts, and it's, almost going on a daily basis the way that we're cranking out content. Daren Millard along with the cofounders of InGoal Magazine, David Hutchison and Kevin Woodley. Fresh off our webinar with Carey Price and wanna talk about what's coming up later on this weekend. Plus talk about our feature interview today, which will include a conversation with Devin McConnell, is the director of performance science and reconditioning with the New Jersey Devils.

It's a long title. It's an extensive interview and it is jam packed full of all kinds of golden nuggets as we will tee them up in just a little bit. One involving using more than two goaltenders in practice and the benefit to that, yes, there is a benefit and we all know everybody wants as many shots as possible, but just a little bit of a tidbit there. Hutch and Woody, congratulations. The webinar with Kerry Price and Eli Wilson.

Eli Wilson Goal Tending Clinics was a massive success and what did you guys, Hutch, let's start with you, take away from the conversation with Carey on last weekend?

Well, I'm super glad we had you in the driver's seat, Daren. So thank you for the professionalism that you added to all that. I'm not sure where Woody and I would have been if we had to handle that ourselves. It was a it was a fantastic it was a fantastic experience. What I really enjoyed about it was that even though we knew there was an audience of 500 or so people watching, we did get to see a bit of the Carey that we see in the summer, that relaxed, comfortable, happy to be around young people guy that was just sharing who he really is.

And I think some of that guard was taken down that you often see when most of us really only get to see him in those sort of postgame media scrums. And, yeah, I don't know how much of that was on air during the webinar and how much of that was beforehand when he was, very chill with all of us. But just great to be able to share that with everybody because even though we weren't in a room together, I think everybody did get the experience of being with Carey to some extent, and it was great to see on social. Thank you to everybody who shared, some photos with us through Instagram, Twitter, wherever of their young goaltenders online with Carey. What a what a cool opportunity for all these guys.

Yeah. I mean, I think to me that was that was the best part was that feedback we got afterwards. And I thought it was summed up perfectly when those parents sent us those pictures of their, you know, 12, 13, 14 year old, son or daughter, their young goaltender in their life sitting at a table looking at a computer screen and Carey Price's looking back at them having a conversation. There was and I wish I had the Instagram post in front of me. There's a mom that, you know, sent us a note basically saying that, like, he's gonna have to snap back to reality here because he thinks he's just hanging out with his buddy, Carey, and having a conversation that this is normal.

And so to be able to do that for these kids, got a lot of feedback from parents, on emails afterwards talking about the exact same thing that Hutch just mentioned about how much they felt they got to see of who Carey was compared to the post game, you know, q and a sessions with the media. Like, they just felt like they got to see the real Carey Price. And like Hutch said, that's what we get to see every year at the Eli Wilson thing, especially around kids. He's so good, so gracious with his time. I wish we'd, sort of rolled out a little longer Q and A and a little less of the of the video just because the q and a was so good with you running it, Daren.

So maybe for next time. But, yeah, just thanks to him. Thanks to Eli Wilson and thanks to all the people that signed up. I mean, we got to the max 500 pretty quick, you know, and, you know, maybe next time we even expand it beyond that, the next time we get we get a name like that, although there aren't many names like that. So, yeah, just I was excited and to see that excitement come back on social media afterwards and in the messages from parents, It was it was pretty cool to see this community growing.

And there was a tactical, strategic, element to it as well, as far as Eli and Carey approached drills, working together in game situations. One of them was behind the net coverage where Carey creates this window for himself so he can look behind the net, that was a great bit of terminology. The other one was how Carey reacts to the reality is you're going to allow goals and how he responds to that in his post goal situation. The guy likes fishing. Likes I fishing a

think he got a real glimpse of why Eli and Carey enjoy working together because they are that very similar soft spoken, just get to the point, very relaxed personalities. Eli's coaching on the ice when he's working with his top level well, all goaltenders is, you know, it fits the way Carey was describing some of the things that he was doing because it's very short, very to the point. Here's what you need to do. Let's get to work. And Carey's kind of the same.

Just tell me what you want me to do. And he does it. And I know Eli's told us before that when they are working on the ice, there really isn't a whole ton of back and forth between the two of them. Carey's just, what do want me to do? Alright.

I got it. And he does it. So his approach to working is sort of no nonsense, but also keep it simple. And Eli is all about keeping it simple as well. And it's fun to watch Carey in that too, because I remember one of the years Eli was trying to teach a method of getting up out of the reverse and getting onto your feet to take a shot, you know, sort of top of crease.

And Carey's got one way of doing it and Eli's got a slightly different way of doing it. And Carey said, oh, so is this what you want me to do? And then of course, executes it flawlessly having never done it that way in his life. And Eli just started laughing. Yeah.

Yeah, Carey. That's exactly what I want you to do. It's a lot of fun to watch the two of them work together, and I think maybe you got a bit of a feel for that.

And, of course, that was one of the takeaways when we did get into some of the video, just watching Carey, you know, talk about Daren behind the net plays and the drills he was doing with Eli and how they translated into games and a couple nice clips of sort of behind the net passouts and shots and just how much more carry recovers to his feet now off that coming off his post on the low play and then just getting out on, especially if the puck moves up, you know, anywhere past sort of the top of the circles. And, you know, he Carey mentioned that. Right? Like, that's something we've actually been working on. And, you know, I didn't recognize it as something that had changed in his game, just something I noticed in the clips.

And sure enough, he said that has been a big part of, you know, part of his evolution. So it was cool to get a little window into that, but I still think for the most part, like, much as the takeaways on the technical side, I still think for a lot, especially the young kids, just to get to see him in that element that we see him in every year at the at the Eli Wilson Day with Price, is pretty special. And to be able to do it for that many people, made it even more special. So, yeah, a good weekend, a good weekend all around.

Just paraphrasing, but, you talked about the strategy behind the net and then the pass out front and how he handles that, from a, just a technical standpoint and tactically to approach the shooter and then he drops in and then from then on it's, to paraphrase, desperation. And I thought, Well isn't that great that he doesn't he's not trying to tell everybody that he's got all the answers, it's I've got my plan, I've got my way I handle it, I go into it, and then when things go outside that realm, you kind of just rely on your instincts and your physical abilities. Thought that was neat.

And the other one was we are not going to be selling any juggling books, juggling drills, or mental game drills based on the advice of Carey. And I just think that goes to show you, like, that's he is so cut out for this position mindset wise and

And to play him Montreal.

Market. Absolutely. You got to see that. And that doesn't mean and he'll be the first one to say it. It doesn't mean that's for every goaltender.

There are some that, you know, wanna be working on the hand and the eye and doing all those drills. Not everybody can just step on the ice and have the confidence that Carey brings with him. Some people need to do different things to warm up, and some people need to do different mental preparation. But it was interesting to hear him talk about, like, how he just does not let him get himself get overwhelmed or cluttered mentally by worrying about too much of those things. He just has such faith in himself that when he goes out there, all he needs to do is be able to see that puck, and that's all that's all he needs in warmups.

Just I just need real shots. Right? That's pretty much what he said, and

Right.

I'm good to go.

So if you missed it and you're listening right now and you're saying, boy, that sounds like a lot of information and some great information and cool stuff between Eli Wilson and Carey Price. The good news is you can still get an opportunity to take in that webinar, albeit not live. How do they do that, Woody? And let's drive them

towards the ingoalmag.com, InGoal premium, membership will get you full access to that. Obviously, we've been running it now since December. What are we at, Hutch? Like, gotta be closing in on a 120 articles up there in the in the five months

that we've been running. You're probably in the right neighborhood. Huge variety, obviously, 20 some odd ProReads, 15 to 17 drills, and similar number of tips. You get access to the feature interviews from this podcast without having to listen to the three of us. There's all sorts of great advantages to, being an InGoal premium member.

But, seriously, if you do wanna check out that webinar and you go there, another little benefit is the video sharing was a bit of a struggle, let's be honest, on the weekend. So even if you were with us already for that webinar, you might wanna go back because we have a much smoother version of all the video that Carey was going over. And guaranteed, you're gonna learn something if you go watch it again anyway.

Yeah. And credit to Hutch there for doing the work rather than just reposting the Zoom video and which, as he said, there were some issues with the video that Carey and everyone was watching was a little bit choppy. Hutch spent the time to transfer in the video that I had from the source video as the guy doing the screen sharing, and it's much smoother. So much easier on the eyes. You can you can probably sort of follow along a little better.

So I'd even if you're as Hutch said, if you even if you were on the call, I'd recommend going back and checking that out. And, of course, InGoal premium, it's $50 for the year Canadian, which is like 2 nickels in The States. Pretty much less than a buck a week, less than the cost of a skate sharpening. $6 a month if you wanna go monthly. Obviously, this is a little shill on my part, but I'd highly recommend it.

And so would a lot of professional goaltenders. We got a nice note today. Brandon Maxwell, who is playing over not to I shouldn't do this on the spot. I probably should've asked if I could do this, but we got a nice note from him. He's playing over, in the Austrian league, or he was playing over in the Austrian league this year.

Just basically saying it's, to paraphrase, a no brainer. Like, why wouldn't you subscribe? He had he's one of our newest pro goaltender subscribers, and, you know, that brings the list. I think we have, like, oh, yeah, counting on the air is always a really good idea. But a quick scan, we've got 15 or 16 NHL goalie coaches, another 11 in the American Hockey League, dozens in the NCAA, CHL, Europe, another dozen in Europe.

And then, you know, with Brandon hopping on board in terms of professional goalies, some just quick counting. This is really good counting on the air. We're now

impressed you can count, Woody.

We're actually over 30 professional goaltenders now subscribed to InGoal premium. So to me, that says a lot, about the type of content that's on there. And that's not a backpack on our part. It's because we have so many coaches and goaltenders that have been so willing to share drills and ideas and tips with us so that we can bring that to our audience, whether it's kids or other professional goaltenders. They're clearly finding value in it, and the Carey Price webinar is just one more cherry on top.

And we've got more webinars coming up.

Right. Hutch, we'll have two, those professional goaltending coaches coming up this weekend in a webinar. Paul Schonfelder, Andy Chido on Saturday. Do want us to take us through what's going to happen on Saturday?

Absolutely. Kevin was just saying that Brandon is playing in the Austrian league and I believe it was when Andy Chido was playing in Austria that I first met him at an Eli Wilson camp. So it's all coming full circle here. Eli's so soft spoken that I asked him what he was doing one morning, and he just said, oh, I got a private this morning. And, I happened to be at the rink.

So I said, well, I'll come out and take a few photos and skated onto the ice. And there's a private lesson between, Eli with Andy Chido, in net, and, some friend of his named Jason Spezza shooting. So a lot of fun to get out for that. And afterwards, Andy and I struck up a bit of a conversation and have been friends ever since. And he is truly one of the most knowledgeable coaches that I've ever been on the ice with.

He's got a unique and very technical approach to the position and yet very holistic at the same time. And he's worked with some guys like, well, like Jordan Binnington. He was starting to work with, when we first met Andy and when we first went out on the ice with the two of them and has obviously played a big role in Jordan's rise and Malcolm Subban, another goaltender he spends quite a bit of time with and quite a few others. So we really enjoy our time with him, and then he's a good friend with Paul Schonfelder in Carolina. Would he?

Yeah. And Paul's a guy that I got to know, working, just as a kind of a video scrub at the Hockey Canada POE camp. Paul was one of the coaches there. What was that? Two or three summers ago.

First time I met him, I knew him through, Elias Rasi in Ottawa. Guy done some work for us. One of my one of my favorites, as a as a young coach, had done some writing for us at InGoal over the years. And so I knew of Paul through, Eli. And when I got to meet him, like, just a great guy.

He's now working for the Carolina hurricanes, as their goalie development coach. He's won gold medals with Hockey Canada under 17 and under 18. Of course, he is the defending still, 2019 American Hockey League Calder Cup champion, Charlotte checkers. He was the goalie coach there working with Alex Nedeljkovic. I hope I said that right because I screwed hands up like, I well done.

Hey. Nailed it. Yeah. I should I should've just kept going, like, confidently.

So we have two bro two pro goaltending coaches this weekend brought to us by two completely different Eli goaltending coaches. And part of part of the vision that we had for this was that the two of them might get the opportunity to engage in a little bit of professional discussion around topics that they're interested in so that we can be flies on the wall while they have that professional chat. But then we will open it up for a q and a session for all of our viewers as well.

Look forward to it. To Andy Chiodo, the goaltending development coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Paul Schoenfelder, goal tender development coach for the Carolina Hurricanes joining us on the webinar on Saturday. What time is that if people want to sign up and take it in live?

Saturday is at noon Pacific and that's 03:00 Eastern. And if you're an InGoal member currently, you should have received an email from us on Tuesday with a link where you can go and sign up. And also you could go to our website now and there'll be a little post on there similar to when we had Carey and you can register yourself there. It is a pre register event. You can't just sort of drop in with a link.

I encourage you to do that soon so you get familiar with the interface. After you sign up, one thing we did notice with the Carey Day folks, you should get an email pretty much right away from Zoom indicating that you have been accepted into the webinar. And if you don't, then you do need to get in touch with us just so that we can sort that out. Right, Kevin? Is that

Yeah. No. And the other note is we had some people, not everyone that didn't get in on the Carey Day, but we did have some people that got their pre registration. And then at the time of the event actually went to our website and we had put a note up once the pre registration was full saying it was saying the event was full just so we didn't have people trying to get in, after it had filled up or maybe even subscribing to get in and it was full. The people that had preregistered saw that as a sign they couldn't get in and what they need to do.

What you need to do is make sure you hold on to that email with the zoom link in it because that's what you click. Don't go to ingoalmag.com. It'll be on the zoom link. So, don't throw it out. We have barely even mentioned this new, webinar with Paul and Andy and we're already up around 75, guests registered pre registered to attend.

So, yeah, they're in demand. It's popular. It's gonna be a great time. Well, we should be well over 100 people. Make sure you make sure you get pre registered.

Check out the links on ingoalmag.com.

Looking forward to it from a technical side, from a tactical and strategy side of playing goal, that will be a big part of the Paul and Andy webinar. Today's feature interview on InGoal Radio, the podcast, involves more of the preparation and the recovery and in between making sure that you're ready to put your skills on display in the best fashion possible. Devin McConnell is the Director of Performance Science and Reconditioning with the New Jersey Devils. It's an extended interview, but it's so fascinating, the stuff that Hutch and Devin get into. We'll go around the horn here just so people can kinda grab onto a couple of different things, but for me, it was using more than two goaltenders in practice does have a benefit.

We all know sharing the net is difficult, but Hutch and Devin talk about four goaltenders in practice. You could get the most out of everything for both shooters and your number one goaltenders.

Absolutely. Like, if you're a parent, if you're a goalie coach, if you're a head coach, you should listen to that part of the interview. Make sure you stick around. It's towards the end, because it isn't just, hey. Practice isn't good for goaltenders.

It is science behind why the way we run a lot of practices just frankly isn't good for your goaltenders, in particular your starting goaltenders.

Now practice dummies though. I wanna mention that we're not referring to anybody in particular other than maybe poking fun of ourselves when we say four goaltenders out there and a couple of practice dice.

To be fair to Devin, he didn't completely take the bait when I asked that question because he did say, we do understand as goaltenders that there are other reasons for practice or other needs and so on. I set him up when I said, you know, in an absolutely perfect world where we couldn't care less about the shooters on the ice, even though we know we have to Yeah. What would you do? So it was good of him to expound on all that for us. For me, that is the piece that stuck.

And the piece out of that stuck for me was not that it was okay to have three or four goaltenders on the ice, but that he wouldn't use them equally. And quite often, we struggle when we see three or four on the ice because there's a rotation and it just feels like you're getting fewer reps than you should. But he would very intentionally have a goaltender there to take certain reps and then he would we're not going to give that all away just now. You can you can hear it, but and then your starter and your backup would have a different role in practice. So that was fascinating to me.

I think it's worth mentioning guys that the reason we bumped into Devin and got him onto the podcast is we get an email every time somebody subscribes and sometimes you have time to see who it's coming from. I happen to see that New Jersey Devil's email address and of course the years perk up and I did a little research and saw that, exactly what Devin does. My background is sports science a thousand years ago, so I was fascinated and reached out to him. And we had a little conversation going Devin was, is a goaltender and himself remains fascinated by the position and that's why he subscribed. And so we had a fantastic conversation and he jumped at the opportunity to come on the show with us.

And actually we've even talked about him providing a bit of content for our members as well. Cause one thing that he did talk about in this podcast interview was the specific routine that his goaltenders go through before practice in the mornings. And, you know, I'm glad that I asked him how long it took because as he started to mention each of these things, I was picturing sort of spending two hours in the gym in the morning getting ready to go on the ice. It's not that at all. It's a very involved routine, it's ten or fifteen minutes.

So looking forward to sharing that.

He also has a book out, A Practical Approach to Applied Sports Science for Athletic Development. We'll talk about that a little bit more after the interview. But right now, here's Devin McConnell, the director of performance science and reconditioning, a goaltender himself, works in the National Hockey League with all players, but offers his unique perspective on goaltending with David Hutchison, the feature interview on InGoal Radio, the podcast.

Feature Interview - Devan McConnell

So here we are, Devin. Thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate that.

Thanks for having

me. Yeah. No. It's our pleasure. Gotta be a really interesting time for somebody in your role right now.

Interesting is one way to put it. Yeah. It's a lot of moving parts and a lot of, uncertainty obviously, but, yeah, it's it has been interesting.

So are you I assume you're in fairly regular communication with the players to keep them on top of their game as best they can physically?

Yep. Yeah. So our whole staff, our whole performance and medical staff, basically, the way that we do it, we kinda divvy everybody up, and everybody's got a handful of the guys that we reach out to and touch base with, you know, every few days, once a week, whatever. Performance side of the equation, you know, we have training programs for the guys who are checking with them and going back and forth, make making sure they have what they need and they know what's going on or making any adjustments. And our medical guys, same thing on their end, just making sure everybody's healthy.

And if they need anything, try to get to them, and that's kinda how we operate.

How do you I mean, what are your guidelines even for putting a program together when you're not really sure what the next step is?

Yeah. It's tricky. It's I mean, one of the first hurdles is just that a lot of guys don't have I mean, nobody has gym access anywhere. So, you know, a few guys have, you know, home gyms, more established older guys might have a decent setup, but a lot of guys are in apartments somewhere wherever that, you know, home might be, and they really don't have anything. So the first hurdle was kind of getting them a minimal amount of training equipment to be able to use just in their in their home space and then designing programs around that minimal amount of equipment and then trying to balance sort of the equation of, you know, trying to keep guys as prepared as possible to come back and play if and when that happens, but also at least early on not knowing if that was gonna happen, and so trying to think in terms of a little bit longer term kind of off season mindset.

So a lot of a lot of spinning plates trying to keep kind of in the air at the same time.

So really curious when you said making sure they have a minimal amount of equipment. We probably got some families at home listening to this podcast thinking, okay. Time to get on Amazon. What am I ordering? What do you need for a basic program at home?

Yeah. We set guys up with or we ask them to just get, like, one twenty kilo kettlebell, 20 pound weight vest, and a TRX strap.

Okay.

And there's, you know, some other stuff. Guys would get some, you know, rubber bands, mini bands, and things like that can do a little bit with that are pretty easy to pick up. But those are the three big things that we kind of, told guys, well, if you can at least get your hands on these, we can design a very kind of, basic plan around that and allow you to be able to train at least somewhat adequately.

And how are you how are you sharing the program with guys?

We have a software system that we use that basically we can write up team and or individual programs and prescriptions, and, basically, they have an app on their phone that they can just open it up or they can get on the computer and open up the website. And every day, they have access to the kind of from a to z, the whole lineup of exercises and all the detail to it. Videos go along with it, all that stuff.

Oh, fabulous. Love to be a fly on the y wall in that software. Yeah. Be good fun. What's you know, if we're not if we're not in a phase like this, what's a day in the life for you in the hockey world?

Yeah. It's there's sort of two scenarios, I guess, game day and practice day. Practice day is fairly routine as far as get to the rink, probably 07:30, seven, 07:30 in the morning. You know, generally an hour, two hours before whatever time the team is going to show up is kind of the plan. My role specifically, so as director of performance science, I oversee all of the sports science and technology tools and data that we use.

So one of the first things just physically that I do when I get to the arena is I set up a lot of the equipment, whether that be heart rate straps guys are going to wear at practice or kind of some of the tracking equipment that needs to be physically fastened into their shoulder pads or whatever. And then if we're going to have a training session that day, whatever technology or tools we're going to actually use in the weight room. So, again, those are kind of my piece of the puzzle, specifically my niche, so make sure that stuff's all set up, ready to go. And then it's just really, you know, the day to day is depends on if we're gonna train, we'll have guys that come in before practice. Some guys will come in after practice, so assisting and working with those guys.

If we have any injured athletes, another part of my role is reconditioning. So I really work sort of hand in hand with the medical staff as far as getting injured players back. So that'll be very quite variable day to day with those athletes, but it'll be working sort of one on one there. And then running a lot of our equipment that we would use in practice from a, again, a monitoring and tracking standpoint. Post practice, kind of the same stuff.

Some guys will work out, set up or breakdown of equipment, and then kind of the end of the day is looking back at whatever information we've collected, analyzing that data, creating whatever reports might be necessary for coaching staff or general manager or even just within our department to better understand where guys are kind of at. Game days are kind of similar in the mornings. It's kind of the same setup. Obviously, middle of the day after pregame skate or meetings, most guys will go home, take a nap. The staff usually will kind of break up into two groups.

Half the group will kind of do the same thing, take off, go home, see family, have lunch, and the other half will stay and usually play like a staff game, which I end up playing a lot.

Oh, nice. And you are a former goaltender. Correct? I should say a current goaltender. Once a goalie, always a goalie.

I am back to current. Yeah. Was it was wild I didn't play, but now I'm back to skating pretty regularly. And then back to the rink at, like, 04:00 for you know, before the guys show up and kinda getting stuff ready for the game.

Fantastic. So many things threads I'd love to pull out there. I think we could be here for a long time. You talked about the tools that you're using and heart rates and tracking. Is that the catapult system?

It's a we use a different company, but similar idea. Yeah. Basically, people could think of it as GPS tracking on the ice.

Wow. Okay. So what does that tell you about goaltenders? That's really interesting. Stuff I've heard, yeah, most of the stuff I've heard in presentations and so on, and they really just talk about players.

So Yes. So what have you learned?

There's certainly more robust information on players at this point. The technology is not new in sports in general. It's been used in soccer and rugby and field based sports for quite a while. It's fairly new in hockey, so there's actually a lot of sort of tinkering and figuring out what means what and what's important, and especially when it comes to goaltenders. Our system in particular gives us some information on left, right, change of direction, acceleration, deceleration, so we can start to get an idea of the type of or quantify the workload that goaltenders are going through from a, you know, an increased movement standpoint, what that actually looks like from a loading standpoint, so we can kind of the idea is to kind of work backwards from that if we have sort of a model of and we can quantify what's physically happening on the ice for the for the players, then what do we have to do to move the needle from a training standpoint, or what do we need to better understand from an injury preventative standpoint?

What are the things what are the loads the athlete is going through? And then another way that we can look at that is we look at return to play a lot of times. So we can see what a player's, you know, baseline information is on a typical practice within whatever, you know, there's gonna be fluctuation of kind of what's his normal. And then if there's an injury or whatever and we're coming back, or even if we're looking ahead and we're starting to see a big difference in number of times they move towards the right or something like that, That might be indicative of something going on, or it might be indicative that they're not fully prepared to return all the way back to competition. So those are some of the things that we'll look at.

And what have you learned that's surprised you?

I think the relative balance, honestly, of at least with our goaltenders of their crease movements. I would have expected that there would have been a lot more asymmetry in the crease patterns, and at least with our guys, seems to be very, very symmetrical as far as the amount of work that's being produced, the amount of times they're moving in different directions. So that's been kinda interesting.

So what do you mean by asymmetry? Because to an to a person like me, you observe somebody do increased movement drills. We're moving as many times left as we are right. Are you talking about the force they're generating, for example, or what's that all about?

In this case in this case, the similarity in the number of times they are moving left and right. Mhmm. So, basically, they're not which I think is gonna be a good thing because you're gonna have essentially equal wear and tear left to right hips and groins and things like that. But it's one thing to have that similarity in patterning in a closed drill where we're just working on skating or increased movement. Mhmm.

It's a whole another thing to see what's happening in sort of a real time scenario in practice, like in a in a game scenario. How often are they are they, you know, moving off of the left post to the top of the right crease versus the other way? And, again, it's been interesting that it's been it's been fairly symmetrical. It's been fairly the same, at least across the broad spectrum. There's certainly differences day to day, but when you look at the totality of their work and I don't know if that's as much an indication of the team play around them

Mhmm.

Or their own their own style and movement patterns themselves. So those are some of the things we've seen that we're thinking about.

Interesting. Are you able to quantify force at all? Because I think we've talked about a bit of a trend away from those goalies that, you know, the push hard, stop hard, all that extra force with the internal rotation on the hip.

Yeah.

What's going on there?

So not necessarily with the on the ice system. We can we you can extrapolate force from some of the acceleration metrics so we can see how fast somebody is accelerating or decelerating. Mhmm. But we also use force plates in the gym that specifically measures that, and we can look at left and right to see if an athlete is producing or absorbing more force left to right, which, again, is a big sort of baseline and return to play indicator for us, and as well as sort of a diagnostic. If we see an athlete is, you know, generally speaking, is fairly symmetrical at camp as far as how they push left to right, and now all of a sudden we're seeing a 10 or a 15% difference on one leg or the other, then those are sort of red flags that we'll pay attention to and work with the medical staff to figure out what's going on.

Mhmm. Is there anything in this, or do you have enough experience using this system at a lower level to really distinguish the difference between the elite and the and the non elite?

Not with the GPS type system. That, again, is relatively new in hockey. So when I came from the college setting, that wasn't a tool that we had available to us. From a force plate standpoint, certainly, and a lot of our sort of benchmarking and profiling of players even within our organization from, you know, New Jersey down to Binghamton is identifying strengths and weaknesses and what some of those thresholds look like in a bunch of different metrics, in force output, in speed, in acceleration, power development, for goaltenders, for players, for everybody is trying to develop some profiles around guys to kind of have an idea. Okay.

What does an NHL you know, what does an NHL goaltender who has played more than five seasons in the National Hockey League look like from a physical standpoint versus somebody who, you know, maybe has not reached that level of distinction, but has played the same amount of time in the minor leagues. Like, what is are there physical differences between those guys

Yeah.

Outside of skill and talent and things like that?

And are there?

Yes and no. I think what you generally see what I generally see amongst our NHL players who, again, have, you know, have played for a longer amount of time, veteran players at all positions, is not necessarily greater peaks in a lot of these physical metrics. They're not necessarily much stronger than the American League players. They're not much faster than the American League players. What I think you do see is they are more consistent across the board.

They're almost better generalists from a physical development standpoint than specialists, where you may see a player that's a bubble player that's up and down might be exceptionally fast if it's a forward. Right? Mhmm. They might be faster than some of our, you know, eight year veterans in the National Hockey League, but they also fatigue faster or they're not able to repeat those things as much. So they're very specialized in that specific skill set or that specific physical quality, but they're not necessarily they're they don't have the breadth of physical abilities.

Probably informing your opinions on youth sports, I would think.

Very much so. Absolutely. Yeah.

So tell us, what should a 10 or 15 year old goaltender be doing right now?

Yeah. I mean, I think if you are, you know, 14 ish and under, I think you should be playing multiple sports. Mhmm. I think early specialization is not good overall for athletic development. I think especially for team sport athletes.

Yeah. I mean, I think if you are, you know, 14 ish and under, I think you should be playing multiple sports. Mhmm. I think early specialization is not good overall for athletic development. I think especially for team sport athletes, I think, you know, maybe the equation is a little bit different if you are a figure skater or a gymnast where, you know, if you're not elite at 12 Yeah.

You can't compete. Right? But the you know, who's the greatest 14 year old goaltender to ever play the game? Don't know. We'll never know.

It we'll never know, and it kinda doesn't matter. What matters is, you know, how good are you, how developed are you, how athletic are you, how robust are you from a injury preventative standpoint, which I think is one of the bigger aspects of the specialization conversation that gets missed, is over specialization, early specialization, creates a lot of the early injury mechanisms that we're seeing across sports, across positions, certainly with goaltenders, with FAI and all the, you know, hip and groin issues. Having a broader base of athletic experience and abilities and different movement patterns and different loading patterns and different speeds and change of directions and all of these different things early on creates a more robust physical person that's able to then, at 15, at 16, at 17, when it is time to specialize and it is time to dedicate much more time to just playing goal, the body is more physically developed and capable and less worn down from the trauma of what we do, of playing goal. To be honest, it's you know, the positions that we have to get into in the modern game are not, you know, the human body is really built for that.

Right? Exactly. It's not good for you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so probably long winded answer to a short question, but that's kind of in a nutshell what I think about early specialization.

Well and I actually don't think it really is a short question, at least not expecting a short one, because one of the things that drives me crazy is when you see the latest Facebook post about this guy in the NHL played baseball, soccer, whatever, therefore all kids should. And of course, you can probably find a guy in the NHL who did nothing but hockey as well, and we're not posting that. So that's why my ears sort of perked up when you were starting to tie some data to these opinions. And when you mentioned that the NHL players versus the minor league players are more generalists. So have you got other sort of experience and data that I mean, the injury thing you talked about is that coming from beyond opinion?

Because I know you're a science based guy.

Which part?

Well, just tie tying the injury to early specialization versus being a generalist.

Yeah. Well, I think that's a that's a big question. I know that there is research being done and has been done in a lot of other sports around this. Soccer is a huge one, especially in The UK. Baseball, I think people are at least somewhat familiar with, you know, the Tommy John situation, and that's, you know, happening earlier and earlier and earlier with kids.

There were studies probably it might be ten years ago now, but some of the early studies in hockey on FAI, for more or less tabular impingement, not specifically amongst goaltenders, but amongst what they considered elite players at, I believe, the Peewee group, Bantam age group, and midget age group over the course of eight to ten year study essentially showed at each one of those age groups, they more or less doubled the percentage of athletes that had clinical signs of FAI. So they put kids, put people through MRIs, and they imaged them, and they found, you know, at the PWHL group of these, you know, quote, unquote elite players

Mhmm.

They something like thirty three percent of them had signs of FAI. Wow. At the Bantam age group, it went to, you know, sixty five or sixty six percent. Basically, by midget triple a age, you know, 18 and under, it was like ninety nine percent of these players had signs of FAI. These were players essentially that were you know, when they considered them elite, it was they were, you know, just playing hockey.

They were, you know, triple a level players, etcetera. So from a data standpoint, what that tells me is that by the time we're seeing athletes, whether or not they're symptomatic, because you can have sort of internal structural mechanisms of these issues, but they're not showing Right. Dysfunction. They're not creating pain yet. We just need to assume that they all have something going on, especially if they've just been playing or primarily been playing hockey from an early age just because of the wear and tear.

And, again, whether it's goaltending or skating, the hip joint is really not designed to do what we're asking it to do in our sport. So we need to understand that. We need to appreciate that and realize that by the time we're getting them at our level, the college and the professional level, major junior level, these athletes already have issues going on, and so we need to take that into account when we're training them and how we're approaching rehabilitation and training programs and all those things.

And, again, whether it's goaltending or skating, the hip joint is really not designed to do what we're asking it to do in our sport. So we need to understand that. We need to appreciate that and realize that by the time we're getting them at our level, the college and the professional level, major junior level, these athletes already have issues going on, and so we need to take that into account when we're training them and how we're approaching rehabilitation and training programs and all those things.

That's fascinating. So you're basically assuming a goaltender. I mean, I know a player as well, but we're not so worried about the skaters. His arriving is effectively damaged goods when he comes into your hands

regardless of what

he's showing.

They really are. They and, again, it's it doesn't mean that a 100% of them are showing outward signs. They're not necessarily having dysfunction or pain. And some again, there's going to be outliers. Some of these athletes are their hips are built in certain ways that just allow them more room.

Right? And so there might not be an issue, but the reality is almost everybody that we're seeing at least has some underlying pathology, and so we need to take those things into account. And then we need to think about and this is what we do a lot here with our players is we think about, okay. We need to it's not always about improving performance, but a lot of times it's about mitigate mitigating the damage that's being done. If we're skating, competing every single day at this level, there's wear and tear that's happening.

What can we do on the other side of the coin to try to offset some of that? And that's what a lot of our training programs with our goaltenders are really built around is how can we manage the dysfunction that might be sort of underlying to keep these guys competing and playing at a high level, and as, you know, close to the razor's edge as possible.

So how can we? Can you give me an example of what that means for a goaltender at the NHL level and for all the panicky parents of, not even panicky, let's face it, we're all just reasonably concerned of the six year old, the 10 year old, whatever your age, what can we be doing, so that they're arriving healthier when they all realize their dream?

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing, and it's honestly, it's a pretty simple answer, but the first component is, especially for the younger athletes, is quality, off ice training, quality off ice strength and conditioning. Not super specialized, not I think people get sports specific caught up in their mind a lot of time with training and think that, well, if my child's a goaltender, if I'm a goaltender, then what we should be doing in the gym or off the ice should look like goaltending. And that's actually kind of the opposite. The specificity is happening on the ice every day.

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing, and it's honestly, it's a pretty simple answer, but the first component is, especially for the younger athletes, is quality, off ice training, quality off ice strength and conditioning. Not super specialized, not I think people get sports specific caught up in their mind a lot of time with training and think that, well, if my child's a goaltender, if I'm a goaltender, then what we should be doing in the gym or off the ice should look like goaltending. And that's actually kind of the opposite. The specificity is happening on the ice every day.

What we want to be doing is training what I call human specific, human the way the human body is supposed to kind of move, and just in general get stronger. A stronger athlete, and I you know, in quotes because what does that really mean? But a stronger athlete is going to be more robust and be able to handle more stress. So younger athletes, I would highly encourage being involved in a sound strength and conditioning sports performance type program, not specifically aimed necessarily at goaltenders, but just aimed at general strength and conditioning. That's certainly an underlying component for our guys here, but they're generally more developed and kind of have that foundation under them.

So a lot of what we're doing, the recipe is really kind of the same every day. We address soft tissue quality. So what does that mean? That means every day our goaltenders are coming into the weight room and starting their day with a foam roller or they're working with our massage therapist. And you can kind of think of massage or foam rolling as trying to improve the quality of the muscle tissue.

So if you've got a bunch of knots in there, you're trying to relax those knots out. That's the first thing we do. Then we're doing some very standard vanilla static stretching. We're trying to lengthen the tissue out to get it to kind of an optimal range. So obviously everybody's familiar with basic stretching.

So we go foam roll, we go stretch, then we want to address joint mobility.

How much time are you spending on that?

As long as we're consistent doing it every day, roll and stretch might be might be ten minutes, maybe even less.

So this isn't the obsessive NHL goaltender doing two hours of stretching?

No. We do know of some.

It's not. Not with our guys at least. And all of them will have their own specific, you know, little tweaks and routines that they want to go through, but we're really not spending a tremendous amount of time, you know, trying to just hang out in the splits. We're trying to just basically get some length through the tissue, improve the quality of the tissue, Then we're going into joint mobility. So the ankle, the hip, and the thoracic spine, the upper back, are designed to be very mobile in the human body.

When they are not, you end up with compensations and issues certain places. Again, NHL goaltenders being the elite of the elite, they tend to be very, very mobile. Most NHL goaltenders are what we would call hypermobile.

Mhmm.

So we'll spend some time on mobility work, but it's not a major piece of the puzzle because they're usually very good at it. The next piece though is that we address is something called functional range conditioning or FRC, and it's essentially getting into end range positions. So going back into stretches, but creating tension and strength at those end ranges. Because a lot of where you see injuries occur for a goaltender is, you know, when they're extended into the split, they have to reach back and obviously get into a unique position. It's at that end range where the muscles and the joints are at their weakest, so we're trying to create some tension and strength at those end ranges.

And, this is on a daily basis. This is maybe another five minutes worth of work, but it's a consistent recipe that we're applying.

Can you give me an example of what one of those looks like? Because I actually have a goaltender who was told no more stretching because he's so crazy hypermobile Yes. And was too young to have the strength at the end range.

Yeah. So for that individual, you could picture sitting on the on the floor doing a, you know, a v sit or kind of extending the legs out, getting as far into a split, so to speak, as you could. At the at each ankle, you might have a heavy kettlebell or you could picture doing it, like, in a door frame.

Mhmm.

So you're able to sort of push. Once you've gotten to your end range, You're just physically pushing into the doorframe or into the kettlebells to create tension. It's like an isometric hold. So you're not actually moving, but you're pushing in.

Right.

You hold that for three to five seconds, and then you pull back out. And so, literally, what you're doing is just creating tension in and out at your end ranges. Which So

Which if I remember also gives you a little bit more range, the old PNF stretching.

It's very, very similar to PNF stretching. Yeah. Exactly. Very conceptually, it's very similar.

Okay. So sorry. I interrupted you there as you were going through the Yeah.

What you're doing during your training. You know, again, on a daily basis, we're at the fifteen minute mark roughly, and then we're gonna we're gonna get up and go through some just very basic kind of dynamic flexibility, dynamic warm up exercises, and then we're basically gonna finish off with some low volume strength and power work. So we have we have a piece of equipment in our gym called the ten eighty Quantum that allows us to do lateral based strength training at really high intensities but without any load on the body. So, basically, we can do, like, a lateral push creating a lot of force, so it's almost like a shuffle motion in the crease, but they're able to load it or we're able to set the machine to load it to create high levels of force at very low speeds. So you would think of, like, it's akin to doing a very heavy squat, like a one rep max squat, where you're not moving very fast, but you're pushing as hard as you can.

But we're able to do that laterally or even some rotational components. We can get into, like, a reverse VH position and create movement out of these positions. The system governs them so they can't move very fast, but they can push really hard. So we're developing strength through a specific range. And then we'll couple that with some lateral based plyometrics or medicine ball throws.

So we're kind of going strength to speed, strength to speed. We might do two to three sets of each of those. And that's twenty minutes pre practice, and then they're going to get dressed and get on the ice.

Same thing every day?

Recipe. Yeah. You know, alter the specific exercise or the specific pattern, but the recipe basically stays the same.

Okay. So how does that inform then a youth goaltender or even a early junior goaltender? What should they be doing every day?

I think the recipe, again, stays the same. Address soft tissue, address length, address tension at length because that's very specific for us as goaltenders. Some basic dynamic warm up to a, physically just warm the body up is very important from an injury preventative standpoint, but also you can think of dynamic warm up skipping and shuffles and lateral stops and starts as like specific skill work. So it's just it's kind of working on the patterns, the basic stuff. Just like most goaltenders know, when they get out on the ice at practice, most guys are gonna have a skating routine

Sure.

Some crease work. It's the same idea. It's just repetitive basic movement patterns that are also just physically warming them up. And then if you have access to any way that you can do just very, very brief, you know, obviously, that you're not gonna have the ten eighty quantum at most, you know, town rinks, but some very basic, you know, single leg squats to a bench with some lateral bounds, and if you've got a medicine ball that you can throw, some rotational medicine ball throws. I think from a two pronged approach, one, that's priming the nervous system to go out on the ice and do explosive work, but two, it's what we consider a micro dosing approach.

If you're able to do one or two just mini exercises every day before practice, that adds up over the course of a season to quite a robust training floor. And that's really an approach that we take here with the NHL schedule being as hectic as it is. The amount of time that we can actually dedicate to training in the gym is very minimal, so we try to microdose. We get just one or two little things done just about every single day or every practice day instead of spending an hour and a half, you know, in the gym twice a week, which we just don't, you don't have the availability to.

Which is a good lesson, think, for everybody. Don't become overwhelmed and expect that you have to get everything dialed in and perfect. Just get something done.

Yeah. Absolutely. Every consistently. Training Yep.

So every training kit needs a foam roller?

I a 100%. I would say if you're not foam rolling prior to prior to practice and games, really any kind of physical activity for goaltending, I think you're missing a huge piece of the puzzle from an injury mechanism standpoint. I think that clears a lot of problems out right there just being consistent with your tissue quality. So I think that's the first thing to definitely have in your bag.

Mhmm. Wow. So many threads to pull here still. This is this is great. I'm still fascinated by the conversation about the physical testing and how that ties to performance.

Always been fascinated to look at the combine process, whether it's at the NHL or junior, and we've even got junior leagues now, combine testing, quote in air quotes, kids as young as 12 years old now.

Yep.

Does that really inform where somebody's going?

At that age, I would say not really. The only the only the only general takeaways from any type of combine testing, in my opinion, are really the speed and power based metrics. If you've got two 12 year olds and you do, you know, at a combine and you do a vertical jump

Mhmm.

And once I don't even know what a good 12 year old vertical jump would be, but let's say 20 inches is exceptional at that age, and you've got somebody that jumps 20 inches and you've got somebody that jumps 10 inches Mhmm. I don't think that's going to tell you necessarily where they're going to be in eight years. What it would tell you is then, at least innately, those two athletes have some different physical qualities. Vertical jump is gonna be very indicative of explosiveness Mhmm. In any direction.

So vertical jump is gonna correlate to some degree with, you know, crease movements and explosive movements. It's also gonna correlate to skating speed for players. So if you've got somebody at that age that has a poor vertical jump or one that has a very good vertical jump, you say, okay. You've got sort of two levels of athleticism. You probably have enough time to impact it, thankfully, especially if you don't, you know, have that explosiveness innately, But it's not gonna tell you it's not gonna predict down the road what type of player this is gonna be or how good they're gonna be.

Even at this level, you know, at the NHL combine, I think looking at those explosive type metrics can inform a little bit about where a player's at, but even then, it's gonna be very different contextually. You've got a player that has a big training age. They've been in a gym and trained well and trained explosively for a long time. They might score very well on those tests, but they may be near their ceiling. Whereas if you have an athlete that's never walked into a gym, their numbers might not be that great, but you don't know that their ceiling might be much higher.

So all of those types of metrics, they're none of them are definitive. They all have to be taken in context and quite frankly with a grain of salt. Mhmm.

Really important thing that you just brought up about finding the ceiling because scouting, of course, is about far more than deciding who the best player on the ice is today, but where can we take them as a pro? Anything you can inform a scouting staff about?

Well, I think, again, from those physical characteristics, you know, I can't necessarily certainly not to the degree of any of our scouts, I can't tell you who the best players are. Sure. But I can tell you, you know, again, just from the quick snapshot from combine data, you know, if somebody is jumping through the roof and their, you know, their Wingate power output is really high, any metrics that we can see that show explosiveness, I'm gonna say, okay. That player is probably pretty fast. And if they're not very fast, it's probably a skating skill component that can be fixable.

If somebody's really, really poor at those things again, if I don't know what their training background is, I can't really tell you if they're gonna get better or not, but I can tell you at least today, take the guy if their skills are the same, take the guy that jumps higher. Because if he's in net, he's more explosive and probably more athletic. If he's a forward, his, you know, first three strides are gonna be faster and more explosive than the other guy. Those are the things. So from a scouting standpoint, those are the types of conversations we have that, hey.

I can't I'm not gonna sit here and tell you who a better hockey player is, but at least as we sit today, I can tell you this person is probably more athletic. So if all things are equal, then I would push you in that direction.

Has the athletic ability at the elite level in the last twenty years of course, it's changed, but I often wonder whether it's all we're becoming a little bit more homogenous. I mean, I think there was a time fifteen, twenty years ago you could be an elite NHL goaltender, but maybe not be the same athlete that your teammate is. Probably less so today. Is that fair that you really can't get away yeah.

Yeah. I would totally agree. I think for the most part, I think it has to do with, much better, training today than we had, you know, physical training than we had fifteen years ago, and more widespread. I think, you know, people understand you know, again, in net, we understand all things being equal, you've got two goaltenders of the same talent level and one is just more innately athletic

Mhmm.

Then that player's ceiling may be may be higher. Well, players understand this now and understand that you can develop athleticism, and that's really what gym training should be about is developing athleticism. So it's become more and more important, and people understand that. And goaltenders now, again, from an early age, I think you're right. I think I think goaltenders on in today's NHL are just as athletic, if not more so than a lot of their teammates, where that probably wasn't the case as often fifteen or twenty years ago.

Yeah. And that's not to say they weren't great athletes then. I think it was who said that he thinks that of all the all the siblings in his family, he was probably the worst athlete of all of them and yet, you know, one of the best goaltenders. Just that the game is different.

Yeah. No question.

Yeah. No question. I think in a way you've touched on this a little bit, but I did come in this wanting to ask you based on the data, based on the tracking systems you're using in practice and so on, How are goaltenders different from the other athletes on the ice? And as a result, how are you training them differently?

So there's a couple things. One, from a conditioning or an energy system development standpoint, and a lot of this is gonna be common sense, but the physical demands from a conditioning standpoint are different for goaltenders and for players. Essentially, what you see from a heart rate standpoint with goaltenders is less of a valley. So their heart rate is always consistently higher than most of the rest of the players if you look at average heart rate over time.

So we're working harder than the players?

We are working harder than the players. There's no question about it.

Thank

you. We are. We actually are from a physical output standpoint. So heart rate is the average heart rate, let's say, over the course of the game is gonna be higher than players, and that's because, literally, obviously, we're not going to sit down on the bench. So we're staying more elevated throughout the entire game than players who are gonna have more highs and lows.

So we have less up and down

Mhmm.

In net, but we have a higher average over time. So that's one thing. And then the way that translates from a training standpoint is in our off season training program, certainly, it'll be reflective of how we perform conditioning work to Mhmm. Train them more to be able to do that, to have a somewhat higher but sustained heart rate than players who are more kind of repeat sprint athletes. But in practice, it's something that we talk about and we think about as in terms of how we structure practice or how we structure our goaltenders' time and net based on the physical demand.

So, basically, what you see in practice, just historically in hockey practice, what the goaltenders are asked to do during a normal practice is not indicative of what happens in a game. So if you wanna train a goaltender optimally in practice to perform in a game, then you need to think about how many shots they stay in net for, how much recovery and break time they get, and do you have them just stand in net and take, you know, 45 shots in a row as whatever

Flow drill.

Yeah. Flow drills are flying around. Because when you kinda look under the cover and look at the heart rate response to what's going on, you're absolutely redlining your goaltender. You're certainly not developing any specific skill set because we're not actually playing the position the way we play in a game. You're just standing there trying to react and not get hit in the face, And so physiologically, it's very different.

So we have these conversations all the time about, you know, sometimes that's necessary and sometimes that's just what it is, but when and where we can we can alter that, we try to make adjustments on the ice. From sort of a strength power standpoint, obviously, the game in net is very laterally based.

Mhmm.

And it's actually in some ways, it's more explosive than players as far as what we're being asked to do is perform one extremely high intensity, high speed, high velocity movement or acceleration with a hard deceleration and a quick reaction, and then a reset in the movement, whereas players are obviously more kind of moving around and flowing all the time. So from a training standpoint, goaltenders actually in the in the weight room actually need to focus even more on kind of power and speed based work as opposed to more higher repetition kind of general strength work.

So Devin McConnell gets to start running all the New Jersey Devil practices tomorrow if and let's forget the needs of the players because, obviously, we have to make concessions so that they can train as well. But let's just say we didn't care what the players were doing. How would you train a change a practice? Would it specifically be in how you're practicing, or would you have four goaltenders out there so that you can alter heart rates? I mean, what would you do in an ideal world?

Yeah. I mean, in an ideal world, you throw all the, you know, all the rules out the window. I'd have four goaltenders out there.

Mhmm.

And you basically have, you know, you'd have two sort of practice dummy guys Mhmm. That would end up taking the bulk of the work in those nonspecific flow drill type exchanges, and you have your top two guys basically subbing in and out in more realistic sort of time frame. So you might have you might have Mackenzie Blackwood in the net during, you know, again, whatever flow drill for a period of thirty seconds or maybe it's a shot count of, you know, five or six shots, and then you'd pull them out and need to have, you know, one to two minutes of rest or maybe go into the corner with the goalie coach and do some, you know, low intensity kind of more specific skill work or skating work. Come back in much more like a the flow of a game where you maybe the puck is in your end for, you know, fifteen, twenty seconds, one shot, two shots, and a rebound, whatever it might be, and then get out while the puck goes the other end. So that's probably the main thing that I would do is bring in or set up a scenario where our top two goaltenders, you know, our guys wouldn't be drilled with 30 shots in a row for four minutes straight, but that their workflow and their work to rest ratios would be much more game like, especially in those types of drills that are not game specific but are necessary from a sort of skill development standpoint for the rest of the group.

Mhmm. That's fascinating on a couple of levels because one, we often hear at the NHL level, phrase three doesn't go into two and it becomes almost untenable to have three guys on the roster at once. Yet you're giving us a really good reason to do that, if not four. But I've also never heard anybody put it the way you just did where it's not just a guy to share a net, but for some very specific reasons at times. So the practice dummy, you know, might be getting, I'm gonna read into this, 80% of a flow drill and the starter might be getting 80% of a game like drill.

Yeah. Absolutely. And listen, that's from a physiological perspective. I understand the psychological side of it and all the other elements. Mhmm.

And it's when I worked in the college setting, we actually we did this. You know, in college hockey in The US and the NCAA, you can have four goalies on a on a roster. Mhmm. And it's not totally uncommon at the college level. And for a few years, we kind of experimented with that, and it worked to some degree from a physiological perspective, but it was a challenge from the other side of the coin.

So it's a give and take, and it's a conversation. I don't think there's an exact science to it, but I think I know looking at the data that the way we traditionally practice our goaltenders or what their what their data tells us from practice is not reflective of what happens in a game. So at some point, specificity is really important, And, if practice is just becoming a, overly fatiguing workload standpoint for goaltenders that does not train them physically for what they have to do in games. And I think we need to think about what's the optimal way to develop goaltenders from a practice standpoint.

And let's be clear here. The New Jersey Devil Sports Science staff is not telling all parents of young goaltenders to run to the head coach and say, you need to change what you're doing. This isn't right. There's a lot of reasons for doing things.

Yes. Yeah. Please don't get me in trouble. I like my job.

A good strategy for parents. This is just something maybe for coaches to think about and learn from. Physiologically then there's also some rationale to something else that often we talk about and that's in those flow drills, how often a player will take a shot and just sort of peel to the corner and it ends up, as you say, shot after shot. Not really good for players either, but this would sort of suggest we should inform our drills with not just that shot, but shot in a rebound because

Yeah. Well, and that's a huge thing. Right? Like, even if there's no rebound, like, we're trained as goaltenders, and we understand the importance of tracking the puck and where does the puck go and moving to where that puck goes after the after the save, after the initial save. Even if that player peels off and doesn't get the rebound, we should follow the puck to the corner.

You know? But if you've got the flow drill where the next shot's coming seven seconds later

Mhmm.

You're not able to do that. So in my opinion, that creates bad habits because goaltender is now not able to follow the play and follow the puck the way that we're supposed to, with the way that we know we need to from a goaltender development skill standpoint. And so that, again creates sort of a dysfunctional pattern as far as how practice often operates versus what is optimal for a goaltender.

Mhmm. There you're talking about habits and technical, but there probably is physiologically a reason too because you want them to have that explosive component.

100%.

And so you also got to hold your goalies honest in that. Don't just follow the puck, but let's give them a reason to.

Right. And so again, if we're talking if we take that concept or that drill and we think about it from a physical development standpoint, where you're right, we want to be training and developing explosiveness with our athlete, well, if the goaltender is at the end of a four minute segment and they're 40 the shot

There's no explosion.

There you cannot do that. You can't become fast and explosive and powerful in the presence of fatigue. So it goes back to that idea of having, you know, another goaltender out there to take shots. From a physical development standpoint, that allows the number one guy or number two guy to do is to train to be explosive because then if you're only taking five to six shots, you can be you can be sharp, you can be explosive, you can be technical and not be fatigued. The idea is to be explosive and then get out of the way before fatigue sets in.

That's what you're really trying to do because very rarely in a game setting are we gonna be spending an amount of time taking shots or, you know, even in the crease with the puck in our zone, for longer than I mean, you know, there's outlier opportunities, but thirty seconds

on three maybe, though?

Exactly. Exactly.

Do you train for that ever, or does it just sort of come from the regular training? Because that's that is being explosive under exhaustion

Yeah. Potentially. So if you're gonna if you're gonna theoretically, you know, develop that

Mhmm.

What you wanna do what I would wanna do from a practice standpoint early in practice, you wanna develop and train the qualities to be fast and explosive and powerful. So that's your ten seconds of work, minute of rest. You know, three shots, five shots, minute of rest. You can be explosive, get out before you're fatigued because you're actually trying to train to be faster and be sharper. You can take that same type of drill, and then you can do it at the end of practice, and you can extend the time frame.

So instead of five seconds, now it is thirty seconds or a minute. Instead of five shots, now it is 15 or 20 shots. So what you're trying to do at that point is maintain as high a percentage of your explosiveness that you developed early on at the end. An example I always like to use is basketball coaches. Basketball coaches love to run their players into the ground and then have them go to the free throw line and hit buckets because at the end game opposite.

Right. At the end of the game, you're gonna be tired. You gotta be able to hit a free throw. Totally agree. But if at the start of the game, you're only shooting 20% from the line, who cares if you're maintaining 20% at the end?

Yeah. You wanna develop the quality first and then maintain the quality later, but you can't do them the other way around.

Yeah. Fascinating. That's really fascinating. Just back to the training piece again, and you were talking about the aerobic component for goaltenders being different than players. There seems to be a bit of a, sort of two different things going on there.

You want them to be the most explosive athlete on the team and yet they've got to maintain a higher heart rate for a longer period of time. So those are two different things, I believe. How do you handle that with training? And what does the aerobic training look like for a goaltender versus a player?

Yeah. So goalies are what I consider an alactic aerobic athlete, which is exactly what you just said. It's alactic is being explosive. That's ten seconds or less of really high intensity, high speed, explosive, powerful work. And then aerobic is being able to maintain a kind of a lower percentage for a longer amount of time.

Yeah. So goalies are what I consider an alactic aerobic athlete, which is exactly what you just said. It's alactic is being explosive. That's ten seconds or less of really high intensity, high speed, explosive, powerful work. And then aerobic is being able to maintain a kind of a lower percentage for a longer amount of time.

We wanna stay out of the middle ground. So most players are more of a middle ground. They're an anaerobic athlete. They're not always as explosive, but they're they don't need as big a an aerobic sort of foundation. They live more in the middle.

Goalies, we wanna be very explosive at the top and then recovery and aerobic ability down at the bottom. So what does that look like from a training standpoint? That looks like in the gym doing mostly explosive based power development work, plyometrics, med ball throws, explosive loaded jumping exercises, things like that. Not a ton of exercise in the eight to 12 rep range, that's kind of the middle. And then from a conditioning standpoint, it's working a little bit more on the length end of the spectrum when we do, like, interval work on the bike, whereas a player, we might be doing a thirty second sprint with a minute rest.

The goaltender, we might be doing a minute or two minute work interval with a one minute rest. So it's still interval based. It's not steady state, your old school kind of road work, go run for forty five minutes or bike for forty five minutes. It's a higher intensity interval than that, but it's somewhat longer than what we might have our forwards and defenseman doing.

Is there a place for the six k run you send a kid out on? Load or is that loaded? No. It's a loaded question.

Is there is there a place for longer duration steady state work, I would say, for a high level, well developed athlete, yes, early in the off season. I would not have that be running because most of most hockey players, regardless of position, are poor runners, and there's going to be an orthopedic cost to longer running relative to something that's less impactful like a bike. So there's a

Because we're so because we're so refined to be hockey players, now our bodies just aren't ready for the demands of running.

Essentially. I think for most team sport athletes that aren't, you know, aerobic based soccer might be a kind of a an example of somebody that would be most of us are not well built. A part of what makes us good for hockey and for goaltending physically in the way we're built is what makes us not good for, like, longer distance running. Mhmm. Sprinting is a different equation.

I think sprinting is really good for goaltenders and for all athletes, but longer duration stuff, not so much. And I would say that the window of time that's necessary or beneficial is pretty minimal in the course of a year. Postseason, three to four weeks, two, maybe three times a week is really all that's necessary before we start to train those other qualities. Because at the end of the day, that steady state aerobic work, that v o two work that used to be so important

Mhmm.

We now realize is, does it matter a little bit, but it's priority number, you know, six on the list? So if you're not getting one through five done, you're not becoming more explosive and stronger and faster, then don't worry about number six on the list. That doesn't matter. It's not gonna have as big an impact on your game.

And speaking of impact, there's a cost to that work as well if you're not ready

for Cost of that work.

Yeah. How about recovery? I think, I mean, whether it's the NHL where you have these wild schedules that are so hard to work with or, you know, a youth team playing five games in a weekend, How do you manage recovery? I mean, those are two different extremes probably. But

Yeah. I it's but you're right. It's very challenging, and it's a huge component, and it's one of the components of, you know, training and development that I think probably gets overlooked a lot. I think when it comes to recovery at any level, I think the basics are the most important. Sleep is absolutely number one.

You can't out recover poor sleep. So getting proper sleep, as much sleep as you can, deep sleep, that's a challenge in the NHL with the schedule, but that's component number one. So educating guys on sleep hygiene and helping them find ways to get to sleep postgame and things like that is really important. Nutrition and hydration, really important. Post game, you know, for us, post game nutrition is an absolutely key component.

Like, what if our guys are eating post game and recovery shakes afterwards. And, again, there's no magic bullet, but just sound high quality food is number two. From a sort of mechanical standpoint, it's almost the same recipe in reverse from the warm up. We want to address joint mobility and then soft tissue length, so stretching, and then foam rolling to improve the quality. You just think about what we do in net all game, muscles get tight and bound up and twisted and kind of beat up.

We want to basically afterwards, after practice or a game, get on a foam roller, lengthen those that tissue out, sort of get back to baseline, get back to neutral as we like to say. Those are the tenants, the big things, the big rocks, And, again, whether you're playing five games in a in a weekend as a youth player, it's kind of the same thing. If you got a foam roller in your bag, get your gear off, spend three or four minutes on foam roller, and just work through anything that's sore or tight or stiff. It'll pay dividends, you know, not necessarily in game two, but in game five it'll add up. Hydration and nutrition, same thing.

Only a small amount of dehydration, you know, a 2% loss in water weight basically, can be a 20 or 30% decrease in power output and aerobic ability and even, cognitive ability. So that's not much. You know, players will routinely lose 10 pounds of sweat in a NHL game. So getting hydrated postgame is really, really important to get back to baseline.

There's some solid research that's informed practice in fairly recent years. I my son couldn't believe it the other day when I told him back when I played hockey and minor hockey, we were forced to spit out any water that we drank on the bench. Things have changed. Okay. You've probably heard my partner on the podcast, Kevin Woodley many times say, I'm sorry I've kept you so long.

Didn't mean it to be this long, but just one more question if I can throw it in people and I hope you'll come back at another time because I could talk about this forever. Thank you for this time. I don't know that I got into hips enough with you. You certainly mentioned them. I was fascinated when you mentioned that people arrive at the pro level, almost all of them with some damage.

What should we be doing about our hips with our young goaltenders? And I and I assume you're going to tell me about, you know, the end of range motion strengthening and the foam rollers and stuff. But is there anything else we should be doing as coaches, as parents, so that our kids are arriving to you in better health?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the things that I talked about, think general well designed strength training and all of those pieces of the recipe are really important. You're going be able to handle higher levels of stress, you're going be able to handle more volume of that stress if you're just physically more robust and stronger. So, yes, those basics are really, really important.

I think the anti specialization, especially early on, is an important component to that. It doesn't mean, you know, don't go to goalie school once a week, you know, in the summers. Mhmm. It just means, like, maybe, you know, pick up a lacrosse stick or kick a soccer ball too and do some other things because I think that's gonna improve not only performance, but I think that's gonna improve robustness again. I think on the ice, there I know there's been a lot of talk about, you know, some of the studies that have come out that have shown that some of the higher highest levels of force and torque in the hip is during, you know, hard stops in skating type drills.

It's a it's a it's a balancing act. Right? Because that's performance, and that's training for performance. That's those are skills we need and we wanna develop. I would say keeping those things in mind and minimizing the volume of that.

I think a lot of a lot of what we do in sport in general as coaches in any regard is we add more on top of the pile. It's let's do a little more. Let's do one more rep or one more set or one more of this or a little bit longer, and the reality is the bang for your buck from a performance standpoint isn't more volume, it's more intensity. So it's doing less of those but making them, kinda like our practice example, making them sharper and crisper and then recovering from it. So instead of, you know, this is a dumb example, but instead of doing, you know, a hard stop drill from pre practice from, you know, across the blue line all the way across the ice, if we do, you know, four hard stops aside and we go from the boards to the to the face off dot or whatever that is or whatever you would do in the crease instead of doing five rotations, you know, around a star drill, maybe we only do two or maybe we do two and we take a break and we get multiple sets of it.

So it's more about sharp and intense

Mhmm.

Than kind of long and fatiguing, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Which is almost the opposite of what so many parents want. I mean, you send your kid to goalie school. I want one kid in the net, and let's have more reps because I'm paying a lot of money for this. And

It's actually not it's counter into it's counter to development. Yes. Like, that is not how you develop the athlete. That's how you get a lot of work done.

Mhmm.

You make them tired.

Mhmm.

And you get, you know, work for work sake. But work for work sake isn't the same thing as deliberate practice.

Exactly. And some people might even say, yeah, but then he gets more technical time. But again, as you said with the basketball example, that's not quality technical time either, is it? Right. Yeah.

Devin, we could talk all day. I really enjoyed that. I'm sure you don't have all day. So I apologize for taking so much time, and I thank you on behalf of all of our listeners for sharing some time with us today.

Well, this was a blast. I could talk all day, and I would love to come back if you guys would have me. Absolutely. This was a lot of fun. I don't get to talk goalie nearly enough, so I had a blast.

Thank you.

Alright, Devin. Have a have a great day. Thank you.

Thanks a Bye.

Outro

Great way to wrap it up. That was fun. Good job, Hutch. And foam rolling, we know Woody's all happy. He's pumped because, we got some foam rolling.

Yes. He knows the time code from when that was made.

Oh, we're pulling that clip, baby. That thing is gonna be all over the Internet. If you're not foam rolling, you're missing a huge part of the puzzle. Believe me, boys, I noted that one. I gotta say, like, in addition, I make jokes about foam rolling.

Obviously, we know I'm a little obsessive with it despite the fact I don't actually find time to do it and can barely get out of my chair when we finish talking here. But in addition to that, I gotta say the coolest part of this interview, and there were a ton of cool parts, is the fact that we found Devin, that we connected with Devin. I should say that Hutch connected with Devin, because he subscribed to InGoal premium.

It's perfect.

It really is. You know, we talked about it earlier with, Brandon Maxwell coming on board as a subscriber, as a pro, all the pros we have. Not trying to make it a flex or a backpack, but it's No. It's a community. A sign we're growing this community in the right direction when we have 12 year old kids who just wanna have a FaceTime session with Carey Price to seasoned veterans and pros and NHL, you know, strength coaches and actually not a strength coach more than that.

But it just, I mean, it made it made me feel really good that this interview comes from him subscribing to our magazine that people see that value and it's because people like him are willing to then give us their time so we can find more content and more ideas and have more conversations about the position that we can then, you know, store. I mean, I can think of three or four different story ideas that popped into my head listening to him talk different angles that I think you could dive into and explore with different people from practice philosophies to, know, you know, hear a lot of butterfly count stuff. Well, now we're, you know, we're hearing and talk of studies of, you know, even just the hard push, hard stop can do some damage. Like there's just there's so much there

off ice goalie specific stuff maybe should be a little bit more just general strength training.

And if I could repeat, if you're not foam rolling, you're missing a huge part of the puzzle. There's just, and to have it come organically like that is, I mean, it just, I don't know. You guys can people can hear me not see me, but hopefully they can hear the massive smile I have on my face because it really means that this community that Hutch started that we've grown, for the podcast to now InGoal premium, It really just feels like we got something special going in here and having Devin be a part of it, only increases that. So, yeah, big smiles. It's not just because I'm sleep deprived today, boys.

Big smiles all around.

And if you like what you hear from Devin, want more from him, I don't know whether he even knows we're doing this, but he's put out this book called Intent, A Practical Approach to Applied Sports Science for Athletic Development, and you can pick that one up Amazon. It's an awesome read with a lot of sports science and you get that intersection between what we have with our bodies and the science around it and when they intersect, we learn so much more.

And there will be a link on the website with the show notes, but worth saying that Devin didn't even mention the book. He didn't ask us to promo the book, he was just coming on to help out other goaltenders. And as I was just doing a little bit of Googling to learn a bit more about him before we chatted, I discovered the book and I forgot to ask about it in the interview. Again, he didn't say a thing. So our pleasure to be able to share that with the audience.

And I'm looking forward to digging deep into that book myself.

Hey, you know what book I'm reading right now? The Real Ogi. The Story of Goldie Goldthorn.

Oh wow.

Yeah. Is that?

That's a long way from a practical approach to applied sports science for athletic development. Lee McGuire does real ogi.

reading a book that came up on the Pete Fry webinar. We had the Pete Fry webinar, he mentioned David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me. And interestingly, as he mentioned that, our other guest, Dylan Ferguson, ran to his bookshelf and pulled that off the bookshelf and he'd been reading the same book.

Show off.

I'm only gonna mention it actually to say, I'm not sure, especially if you're a parent of a younger goaltender, that you wanna run and grab this book because there's some pretty heavy stories from Goggins' childhood that are pretty difficult to read. And the language is very raw that you might expect out of Navy SEAL training. So word of caution to parents, although I'm really enjoying the book.

So a lot of literary advice along with my weekend planning.

Can I read?

I'm actually reading I'm actually reading a book right now. We're having family reading time every night before we go to bed. We're trying to cut back on the television. There's a lot family time as we're all locked up.

Are there any words in your book, Woody?

Where do you sneak in your crayons? What do you smuggle them in with?

Well, okay. Like, I mean, normally, family reading time would mean I would read Garfield to the youngest, but we've evolved a little bit here. I am reading The game.

Let's see.

It's been years since I've read it.

Yeah. I just finished it again.

I know because you had the through the Vegas Golden Knights book club. Yes. And I gotta say, like, this is I mean, I shouldn't be ashamed of it, but it is embarrassing. I wanna say, because my kids are just blown away. This will be the first book I've read in probably a decade.

And as a writer, that should be embarrassing. But the reality is I read so much. Like, I'm constantly reading stories and articles every day, deep dive features, you know, profiles, things like that. Like, I just I read so much journalism over the years that I stopped reading books. Like, it's a really bad habit.

And so to get back into it and to have it be Ken Dryden and the game has been it's been fun. I've enjoyed it. I'm kinda I'm powering through. I'm actually gonna finish this thing.

Yeah. It's a book about his last season in the National Hockey League put out in the early eighties, so a really good read. There's been numerous anniversary editions, and it's just the, it strikes me how the game's changed, but it hasn't changed a whole lot. Like the stories are pretty similar to the same stories you get now. So it really does give you a look inside a professional sports dressing room, a National Hockey League dressing room for that matter.

Thanks to Devin McConnell and looking forward to Paul Schonfelder and Andy Chiodo this weekend on the webinar on Saturday, ingoalmag.com for more information on that for David Hutchison and that voracious reader himself, Kevin Woodley. I'm Daren Millard. Thanks for listening to InGoal Radio, the podcast. We'll chat with you again.