MAX Hockey

Your goalie is on their angle, ready for the shot, reads it’s going low and…

It squeaks through the five-hole in Vitek Vanecek of the Washington Capitals’ situation. It’s a goal he would like to have back and every goalie has experienced this fateful mistake.

So what went wrong on this play and how can we learn from it? Let’s look at two freeze frame images of his save attempt.

What Vanecek is displaying is that realization he was lazy in his butterfly and in simple terms, was a combination of indecisive and flopping to the ice going into a blocking position. If he had been intentional in his movement, driving both knees simultaneously, he would’ve most likely sealed off the ice with his pads.

But instead, we see the goal. The puck slips under his pad, he’s flopping to the ice with one pad coming down before the other, and his stuck lifts up as he drops to the ice. It’s a tough shot in close, but your goalie’s movements have to be intentional. The more reactive they are (the “oh crap” kind of reactive), the more your goalie will run into these types of situations and plays.

If you haven’t read what makes a good butterfly, I recommend checking out that article as well to fully understand what Vanecek’s save selection should have looked like and how he would normally execute it. Thanks for reading and as always leave any questions or comments!