Getting beat high glove (breakaways)

[dstew29]

Could just be an off-week of playing for me but there's been a trend of giving up a few too many goals on one-on-ones to my high glove side. I have regular glove hand and the shots have all been on breakaways or 2 on 1s where the skater gets the puck free and clear of defenders at top or mid circle and walks in alone.

I'm not trying to beat myself up given most of these were undefended 1 on 1 situations with decent to high level shooters, but still I think I'm at a point where I should be stopping a higher % of these.

I'm thinking its my glove hand positioning but interested to see how others train for this type of shot/move on 1 on 1 situations.

[Ross]

I sometimes play against a  young goalie who has a really good glove hand and on breakaways he really moves it out in front and moves it around, doesn’ keep it stationary. I started doing the same and for me it helps.

As Martin Brodeur says -

"I try to get his attention, say I wave my glove at him when he's coming in so he knows I'm ready for the top shelf," Brodeur said. "I'll move my blocker or fake a poke check if he's looking at me."

[CJ Boiss]

I was having general trouble making saves with my glove and blocker for the longest time, so during warm-up I started butterflying on the goal line while my teammates shoot on me, and that helped a lot. Lots of AAA goalies I've seen do something similar, where they'll have a guy just focus on shooting pucks at their glove and blocker for a while during warm-up.

[benner33]

I do the same at my skates when I have a great shooter or with my coach but in my other skates I’ll take a few to warm up tracking and then just do stretch and skate warm ups (some can’t shoot where I ask them no matter what  )

[dstew29]

Great ideas @Ross @CJ Boiss ! I skated in a medium paced pickup last night and found success with the pronounced glove position (little higher and out front). In hindsight I think I was subconsciously focusing on my lateral move if they came with speed and tried to deke to a side - which I think led to a lazy/lower glove hand pre-shot.

I have a high level skate tonight so I'll get to practice some of this at full speed. OR, I can just get @bunnyman666 to make me a clone of his retro vaughn trapper 

[seagoal]

I was going to say Active Hands, out in front is a huge strategic advantage for 3 reasons:

1) Objects closes look bigger and take up more space closer to the viewer (shooter - puck) than further

2) Leading with your hands in movements on your knees is just sound technique and goalie camp 101.  Your body will follow your hands.

3) You can see in front of you (generally) better than you can see beside you.  You'll catch more pucks with a glove in front.

Ever since my first ever goalie camp last year I have forced myself to keep my gloves in front of my body, in my forward vision, rather than beside my body, in my peripheral vision, and it has made huge improvements on my glove hand...and my blocker hand too...with controlling pucks.

"Stopping pucks is easy.  Controlling pucks is very difficult."

Focus on the latter.

[coopaloop1234]

3 hours ago, seagoal said:

Ever since my first ever goalie camp last year I have forced myself to keep my gloves in front of my body, in my forward vision, rather than beside my body, in my peripheral vision, and it has made huge improvements on my glove hand...and my blocker hand too...with controlling pucks

My little "mantra" I'll repeat to myself in games is:

"Hands Forward"
"Stick Down"
"Butterfly"

It's something I've used since I picked up the position and I use it as a "Reset" to get my mind/body into the correct form. Positioning will save your ass more often that reactions and by just having your hands and stick in the right spot, you'll improve that SV%.

[seagoal]

29 minutes ago, coopaloop1234 said:

My little "mantra" I'll repeat to myself in games is:

"Hands Forward"
"Stick Down"
"Butterfly"

It's something I've used since I picked up the position and I use it as a "Reset" to get my mind/body into the correct form. Positioning will save your ass more often that reactions and by just having your hands and stick in the right spot, you'll improve that SV%.

Yup. 

MIne is :  "Good footwork. Active hands out in front. The most important save is the next one, no matter what.  Stay Present. Stay Calm."

@dstew29

One great way to practice active hands, and I learned this from studying Rinne over the years, is you know those routine belly saves we make? Symmetrical butterfly, puck is dead center and low, hits us in the belly, we make ourselves soft, and trap it there?

Try catching those pucks with your glove.

Edited January 16, 2020 by seagoal

[Jonathon v]

On 1/15/2020 at 5:39 PM, CJ Boiss said:

I was having general trouble making saves with my glove and blocker for the longest time, so during warm-up I started butterflying on the goal line while my teammates shoot on me, and that helped a lot. Lots of AAA goalies I've seen do something similar, where they'll have a guy just focus on shooting pucks at their glove and blocker for a while during warm-up.

How much does this help? I feel I am great down low but get beat a lot glove and blocker high or lower

[CJ Boiss]

1 hour ago, Jonathon v said:

How much does this help? I feel I am great down low but get beat a lot glove and blocker high or lower

It helps me a lot. Really gets my hands moving, my head turning to track the puck. Not sure how it'll work for you, though.

[BadAngle41]

12 hours ago, Jonathon v said:

How much does this help? I feel I am great down low but get beat a lot glove and blocker high or lower

10 hours ago, CJ Boiss said:

It helps me a lot. Really gets my hands moving, my head turning to track the puck. Not sure how it'll work for you, though.

Big fan of this myself. Trick is being in Beer League and finding a shooter who understands that going bar down in warm ups doesn't go on the score sheet or impress the scouts. It's really just reducing the number of moving parts... being in that static butterfly position and isolating to allow the focus on tracking all the way in (and in the blocker side case... all the way out as well.) 

[Telfo]

i have had issues with this in the past and the usual culprit is not having my hands out front and engaged as much as they should be.  When they are further back I tend to naturally drop them as I go into butterfly and just don't have the time to get them back up if the shot is high.

[Quadzilla32]

On ‎2‎/‎11‎/‎2020 at 12:24 PM, Telfo said:

i have had issues with this in the past and the usual culprit is not having my hands out front and engaged as much as they should be.  When they are further back I tend to naturally drop them as I go into butterfly and just don't have the time to get them back up if the shot is high.

I'm guilty of the same thing, I tend to find myself having my gloves almost right next to me. Its a bad habit I have to break since I seem to get beat a lot on my blocker side. I started to really remind myself to have hands out in front of me and track the puck.

[Fullright]

• Really good advice here by the writers above. Hands in front was the first thing that occurred to me as I read your question and sure enough, it was emphasized by the gang. Only thing I'd add is to make sure your glove is open. Sometimes I have a bad habit of not keeping it open and have to remind myself to do that. Question does come to mind: are you comfortable with your hand speed? There's things you can do sharpen your reflexes some and your hand eye coordination.

[dstew29]

16 hours ago, Fullright said:

• Really good advice here by the writers above. Hands in front was the first thing that occurred to me as I read your question and sure enough, it was emphasized by the gang. Only thing I'd add is to make sure your glove is open. Sometimes I have a bad habit of not keeping it open and have to remind myself to do that. Question does come to mind: are you comfortable with your hand speed? There's things you can do sharpen your reflexes some and your hand eye coordination.

100% agree, the active hands / hands out in front has been a big help for me since the original post.

I'm pretty comfortable with my hand speed/reaction time (can always be better though lol). But what I've sort of learned about my game a bit (from Live Barn mostly) is that I tend to be more reactive than proactive - which can work for me up to a certain skill level. Meaning, when a shot is released off the blade I'm usually  not already moving to a butterfly. It's maybe halfway to me when I've tracked it and start a move. Once you start skating with guys that can place shots with a quick/sneaky release then you really need a mix of proactive/re activeness to your game. What I mean is my"reaction time" and "reflexes" can bail me out but usually, but not always when the skill level is higher. Then I need to have that good angle, good body control and good positioning (active hands out in front, body lean, crouch). When i'm playing higher level skates, and my hands drop on a break away or cross ice pass, my reaction speed / accuracy has to be that much quicker and better to get my glove up if the shots going top shelf. If I had a active / higher glove already on the crease slide then my next glove reaction doesn't need to be as severe or maybe its already in the right spot.
 

[benner33]

I have this same issue too with my fastest skates that have great shots or sneaky releases. I’ve been reviewing the videos to see what clues I can see to help that prediction. Any tips would be welcomed!

[coopaloop1234]

32 minutes ago, benner33 said:

I have this same issue too with my fastest skates that have great shots or sneaky releases. I’ve been reviewing the videos to see what clues I can see to help that prediction. Any tips would be welcomed!

Hold your glove higher.

[benner33]

Heh likely  played with a group this morning that apparently had two former Pro teammates in the skate and either high snipe or sneaky deke they almost always beat me

I’ll try that. I tried having my glove out and waving it at them but I don’t think it worked  

[CJ Boiss]

41 minutes ago, benner33 said:

Heh likely  played with a group this morning that apparently had two former Pro teammates in the skate and either high snipe or sneaky deke they almost always beat me

I’ll try that. I tried having my glove out and waving it at them but I don’t think it worked  

Wiggling your glove around will work on lower-skill players, sometimes, but anyone that's gone pro or semi-pro will probably just exploit that.

[Chenner29]

On 1/16/2020 at 9:22 AM, seagoal said:

I was going to say Active Hands, out in front is a huge strategic advantage for 3 reasons:

1) Objects closes look bigger and take up more space closer to the viewer (shooter - puck) than further

2) Leading with your hands in movements on your knees is just sound technique and goalie camp 101.  Your body will follow your hands.

3) You can see in front of you (generally) better than you can see beside you.  You'll catch more pucks with a glove in front.

Ever since my first ever goalie camp last year I have forced myself to keep my gloves in front of my body, in my forward vision, rather than beside my body, in my peripheral vision, and it has made huge improvements on my glove hand...and my blocker hand too...with controlling pucks.

"Stopping pucks is easy.  Controlling pucks is very difficult."

Focus on the latter.

This is pretty much it.

Most guys struggling with this probably have their gloves like this:

When we should have the gloves out front like this:

[benner33]

21 hours ago, CJ Boiss said:

Wiggling your glove around will work on lower-skill players, sometimes, but anyone that's gone pro or semi-pro will probably just exploit that.

They did but I was actually trying to get them laughing  

[keeper_13]

If you notice this happening a lot, I'd recommend some thought as to how you are holding your glove.  I started out holding my glove low and out to the side like an 80s goalie, now I nearly always have it pointing at the 11 or 12 o'clock, like Price does in the pic above.  In nearly all situations it is much better.  I always use it on breakaways and am rarely beaten top cheese.  

It's possible you may be moving your glove too much.  Ever watch an NHL game and see a shooter put the puck right into the goalie's glove?  What's happening is the shooter is picking the corner, but the glove is already covering the corner.  lol or the shooter goofed, which also happens sometimes.  

You may also want to challenge the shot more aggressively, which will have you cutting down the angle more.  If you do this you can expect more dekes and fewer shots.  I skate out aggressively to challenge the shot, then flow backwards towards my net, waiting until he makes the first move.  He'll either shoot, in which case he hopefully has nothing to shoot at but my chest, or he'll deke.  If he dekes I flow backwards towards the post he dekes towards, while being ready to use my stick to prevent him from switching sides.  I try to match his speed and vector at the instant he shoots, and still try to make the save with my chest.

[A.YOUNGoalie13]

17 hours ago, keeper_13 said:

If you notice this happening a lot, I'd recommend some thought as to how you are holding your glove.  I started out holding my glove low and out to the side like an 80s goalie, now I nearly always have it pointing at the 11 or 12 o'clock, like Price does in the pic above.  In nearly all situations it is much better.  I always use it on breakaways and am rarely beaten top cheese.  

It's possible you may be moving your glove too much.  Ever watch an NHL game and see a shooter put the puck right into the goalie's glove?  What's happening is the shooter is picking the corner, but the glove is already covering the corner.  lol or the shooter goofed, which also happens sometimes.  

You may also want to challenge the shot more aggressively, which will have you cutting down the angle more.  If you do this you can expect more dekes and fewer shots.  I skate out aggressively to challenge the shot, then flow backwards towards my net, waiting until he makes the first move.  He'll either shoot, in which case he hopefully has nothing to shoot at but my chest, or he'll deke.  If he dekes I flow backwards towards the post he dekes towards, while being ready to use my stick to prevent him from switching sides.  I try to match his speed and vector at the instant he shoots, and still try to make the save with my chest.

I agree. In addition, really nobody should ever shoot on you with a breakaway. If people are consistently shooting on you on breakaways it means you are backing in too fast. Keep your gap, project your hands more as they get closer and you should be ok.

[ilyazhito]

On 1/16/2020 at 10:40 AM, dstew29 said:

Great ideas @Ross @CJ Boiss ! I skated in a medium paced pickup last night and found success with the pronounced glove position (little higher and out front). In hindsight I think I was subconsciously focusing on my lateral move if they came with speed and tried to deke to a side - which I think led to a lazy/lower glove hand pre-shot.

I have a high level skate tonight so I'll get to practice some of this at full speed. OR, I can just get @bunnyman666 to make me a clone of his retro vaughn trapper 

That is why I have a ready stance with the trapper high, usually at about shoulder height. My left arm and hand form a 135 degree angle from my shoulder. This keeps my trapper high and in front of me so I can mobilize it to make the save. 

[GoalieNut]

Check out Future Pro on YouTube.  Lots of great advice and explanations.