When it comes to stopping a scorer in a one-on-one situation, NHL goalkeepers are better than they have ever been.
The League-wide savings percentage has decreased in recent years from .910 in 2019-20 to .900 this season, which are improving from strategies and finding shooters to defeat goalkeepers with screens, deflection and back door games. Beating a goalkeeper with a clean shot has become incredibly difficult.
Listen to the conversations of the dressing room after a team is closed. You hear players and coaches in parrots the same reasons for the lack of goals.
“We needed more bodies for the net.”
“We didn’t get enough in the eyes of the keeper.”
“Goals are too good nowadays. When they see the shot, they stop.”
To a certain extent, these commonly used sentences are true. Modern goalkeepers are such good skaters that they are usually in an excellent position, so that shooters get very little just to get on. They have trained all their lives, specialized in reading photos, so it is something really exceptional to get the puck past them when they have put their feet and a clear view of the shot.
In response, today’s elite scorers find ways to use the lectures of these goalkeepers against them. They tackle the instructions on those goalkeepers to predict shot locations and then give them a false information in an attempt to fool them. Being an elite scorer is less about who can shoot the puck the most difficult, or even the most accurate, and more about who can hide their true intentions and mislead the opposition with deception.
We will look at specific examples of these subtle acts of fraud, and why they are so effective, by investigating four of the most traditional goal scorers of the competition: Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, William Nylander and Kyle Connor.
First, it is important to understand how goalkeepers react to shots. The term “lightning fast rings” is often exaggerated. Yes, these little ones have an exceptional response time, but the human body has limitations. A Study by Harvard University showed that the average human response time is 220 milliseconds and that the average recognition response time is 384 milliseconds.
80 MPH shot from the point (55 feet distance from the net) reaches the keeper in less than 470 milliseconds. The keeper reaches a shot of the same speed from the center of the slot (20 feet of the net) in 170 milliseconds.
This means that with most photos a keeper does not have the time to actually see where the puck is shot and then responds to his flight. They usually read the body language of the shooter and stick to predict where the shot is going. After they have seen thousands and thousands of shots during their lives, goalkeepers become incredible in it, creating the illusion that they actually respond to the Puck. The truth is that if a shooter simulated a shot without a real puck, the goalkeeper would still know where the “shot” went in most cases.
On this goal, Crosby scored on 11 March, he took the way Vegas Golden Knights -goalkeeper Ilya Samsonov read the knife from his stick and used it to his advantage.
Crosby is as cunning as they come and has a lot of time and space in this piece. The deception is so subtle that it is difficult to notice without slow motion, but see how Crosby opens his stick magazine Wijd just before he releases the shot. Everything about this release tells Samsonov that Crosby is probably high on the Blocker side, but with a fast film off the wrist, Crosby turns off the toe of his stick blade at the last minute and shoots a low shot just within the left skate of Samsonov.
If you look closely, you can even see Samsonov’s Blocker coming back to the right, where he expected the shot. The small weight transfer that a keeper makes when leaning in a Blocker Save means that his opposite leg will usually be slower to reach the ice, so Crosby shot to the short side. It is a simple looking goal with a lot of happens under the surface.
Kucherov uses a similar form of deception, especially on escapes. This goal that he scored against the Penguins on January 12 is a great example of a movement that he often uses to beat goalkeepers in one-on-one situations.
Kucherov fans open his stick knife, very similar to Crosby in the previous clip, and only closes the toe halfway through the release. Because the change is so late, he regularly lets goalkeepers who flash their blocker to their side, only for Kucherov to curl the puck in, under their armpit, as he does Tristan Jarry on this piece.
The first Deke to pull the puck outside his body is crucial because he gets the keeper out of the corner. When Kucherov de Puck had right in front of him, Jarry was perfect on the corner with the line from the puck to the center of the net that ran right through the center of his chest. That changed quickly when Kucherov pulled the puck out and gave the shooter a lead.
You can see how much space there is on the short side after Kucherov de Puck has pulled out, and it is probably the reason why goalkeepers throw away their blocker so aggressively when he shoots. They can feel that they are out of the corner and expect the puck to go between their blocker and the mail. Instead of photographing at that opening, Kucherov anticipates the next movement of the goalkeeper and shoots where the next opening will be.
The night before he had drawn the same movement against Devils goalkeeper Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom sticks out his Blocker aggressively, only for Kucherov to put the puck in his deceased Teen Krul.
Kucherov has mastered this trick to the point where it feels almost unfair for the keeper. It is his go-to-breakaways. Part of what makes it so effective is its speed. Few players approach these situations at the speed that Kucherov does, making it only harder for the goalkeeper to read him.
Here he scores on Columbus’ Elvis Merzlikins and Ivan Fedotov of Philadelphia with the same step on March 4 and March 17. Kucherov lures them in with a light manipulation of his stick leaf, combined with the fact that the Deke removes the goalkeepers from their perspective.
There is a reason why Kucherov exceeded his expected goal statistics in nine of the last 10 seasons, according to Evolving hockey. Expected goals models are based on how often players score on a shot in view of the location and various other factors, but it is not responsible for shooting skills, which Kucherov has plenty of.
Elite scorers use more than just the stick leaf to mislead goalkeepers. Maple Leafs star Nylander has just duped with a kicking movement that he uses quite often. Here is an example that he uses a high staircase with his trail leg on this winner of the Devils against the Devils on January 16.
This movement is not unique for Nylyer. It is a standard off-pot shot with the left leg (in the case of nylyer because it is right-handed) walking in the air to get leverage and add speed to the Snapschot. It is a technique that is usually used when skating in the PAS, because it makes a faster release possible, and is used more often than not on high recordings, such as those of Nylander Markstrom with during this game.
Here it starts to be difficult. Nylyer has realized that goalkeepers read the off-pije snapshots and is now starting to turn it against them. On this goal – which happened to come against New Jersey – Nylyer kicks the leg up, but shoots the puck along the ice.
You can see that Devils goalkeeper Jake Allen responds as if the shot is going high. Nylyer not only kicks his leg, his sequel can be mimic a high shot. If all had read correctly that it would be a low shot, he would have driven his knees in the ice and sealed his butterfly. Instead, he extends his glove and his left cushion is late to seal, and that is exactly where Nylyer scores.
Connor still has an excellent season in Winnipeg. He is one of the most undervalued scorers in the competition, with at least 30 goals in all eight of his entire NHL seasons (excluding the remarkable season 2020-21, when he still almost hit the stamp).
Connor’s biggest weapon is a ridiculously fast release that is difficult to read. He uses a CCM Ribcor stick with a P92 “Sakic” curve, named after Avalanche Hall by Famer Joe Sakic. It is the most iconic stick curve and the most popular among NHL players, with a bit of an open toe to promote higher recordings.
One of the largest keys for Connor is the 85 Flex in the stick. It is not the most flimsiest stick in the NHL, but it is on the more flexible side. This enables him to beat the puck at high speed without putting a ton of weight or pressure in the stick. His upright shooting style gives goalkeepers little warning that there will be a shot, and it regularly catches them overwhelmed.
He did it on Monday evening against Vancouver, casually a shot by Canucks goalkeeper Thatcher Demko in transition.
There is very little shoulder tip or forward body lean prior to the shot, which makes it difficult for Demko to anticipate. It is also a bit out of the rhythm, which is a difficult concept to describe, but the feeling that it comes out of nowhere for the keeper. In this case, Connor shoots from his outside (right) leg, which is usually accompanied by a reduction in the upper body while the player jumps from his bone inside, builds energy and leverage.
Demko has some of the best footwork of every goalkeeper in the NHL, and yet Connor still catches him between Shuffles. Shooting the puck only half a beat before the keeper expects it to make a difference.
Connor also uses more obvious forms of deception to maximize his rapid release and catch goalkeepers, such as this no-look-shot that misled San Jose goalkeeper Alexandar Georgiev on December 17.
Georgiev knows that there are various passing threats at the back of the piece (both Cole Perfetti in the low lock and Mark Scheifele near the distant post), so he is already hyper-conscious of a cross-seam pass. When Connor looks at the center of the ice while he loads his stick for the shot, it clearly throws the keeper away. Georgiev Vals not positional by flattening his goal line. He is still square against the puck, but he shifts his weight on his left leg to prepare for a lateral explosion over the fold in the case of a pass.
Therefore, when Connor shoots high on the short side, Georgiev makes an uncomfortable stitch to the puck with his glove without even falling into the butterfly. The reason that the storage attempt looks so strange is not Georgiev’s weight transfer where it would normally be due to the threat of the pass, reinforced by Connor’s head fake.
With the skill and intelligence of the modern goalkeeper, shooters are increasingly confident. The days of ending and cracks along the keeper with pure speed have long disappeared. Lateral passing plays, deflections and screens will still be the most efficient way to score, but when a shooter is opposed to a goalkeeper Mano A Mano, King is King.
(Illustration: will Tullos / Athletics; Photos: Mark Lomoglio, Mark Blinch, Daniel Bartel, Jayynn Nash / Getty images)