New wave of goalies relying on athleticism

Save percentages going up, goal scoring going down

Hall of Famer Patrick Roy treated the question almost like a shot on net, deflecting it away when hit with whether goaltenders of today are more athletic.

“Are you saying I was not?” the Colorado Avalanche coach said, his intimidating stare briefly returning. Then he thought about it for a moment.

“Maybe they are,” Roy said. “The position has improved so much since my first day in the NHL.”

Goalies still rely on the butterfly style Roy helped make famous, spreading their goal pads and hands to resemble a butterfly’s wings. But the art of keeping the puck out of the net has evolved into so much more. Goalies now spend more time on their knees to take away shots around the net and use all that padding to steer pucks into the corners.

Above all, goalies are becoming even more agile.

The save percentage around the league in 2014-15 was a combined .911, which is among the best dating to 1982-83, according to STATS. What’s more, goaltenders stopped 875 of 1,253 shots in shootouts this season, the highest percentage (69.8) since it was first instituted for the 2005-06 season.

It could make for some low-scoring playoff games that began Wednesday.

The size of goalies these days helps. Of the starters in the playoffs, only one (Jaroslav Halak of the New York Islanders) is under six feet. The tallest is Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop, who, at six-foot-seven, is just two inches shorter than Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara.

“I remember days when I would get a shutout or something and I would feel like I didn’t do anything. Those days are long gone,” said Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne, whose team opens against Chicago. “I feel like the game’s really exciting. I think goalies are really good these days, they’ve always been. But guys are real fast and just play a solid game, really consistent.”

Roy couldn’t agree more. In winning 551 regular season games and four Stanley Cup titles, he relied on that butterfly approach, which was hard on the hips — constantly bouncing to the ice with the pads spread wide will do that — but even harder to solve.

Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury relies on that, too, as do most goalies. Washington’s Braden Holtby estimated that about 95 per cent of saves are made in the butterfly position, but it’s about “getting up from there. It’s using your hands. It’s using your skating to get to different places, which is evolving.”

Other styles catching on include the “V-H” (vertical-horizontal) and the “Reverse-V-H,” especially when an opponent has the puck behind the net. Basically, if a goalie is on the left post, his left leg would be up and against the post, while the right pad is down on the ice. It forms an “L” and makes squeezing anything in downright difficult (the “ReverseV-H” is from the opposite direction).

In the end, though, it boils down to simply keeping the puck out of the net by any means necessary.

“I don’t care if I make the save with my pad,” Rinne said, “or with my head.”