Understand angles - Take advantage
Article 2/4

Espoo 13.7.2003

In this second article of our angle series we will look a little deeper on the basics of angles so that you will get a good enough understanding of our philosophy for angles and especially why do we teach things certain ways.

When you understand the dynamics of angles better than the shooter trying to score at you, you will always have advantage on the situation.

Correct angle, player or the puck?

This is quite clear for all goalies who have ever gotten any instructions - always align yourself between the center of the net (center point of your goal line) and the puck!

Why? Once again, very simple answer: This way you will always have equal amount of space to cover on both sides and therefore better chance to make the save.

This illustration shows you what the players see and what the real view and open space actually is. On the left you see goalie on his butterfly and photo take from pucks view. On the right you see the view of the left shooter and when you bring your mouse over the photo it will change to the view of the right shooter. All 3 photos have been taken with the goalie at the exact same position.

In this area you can also take advantage over the shooter as they will never see the play the way you see if your are focused on the puck and aligned properly. Shooters view is always on either side of the puck depending on which side they shoot from. Left shooter sees always more space on the catch glove side and therefore have a tendency to go to that side when trying to score. They also see more space on top than in the bottom, even with a stand-up style goalie, although this is starting to be generally true in most situations as goalies are using so much butterfly these days to take the bottom of the goal away.

More advanced goalies do often align themselves even a little more provocatively more towards their weaker side exposing even more net on their stronger side and thus forcing the shooters to go there. Most often it's the catch glove side they leave more space for left shooters. I don't recommend this to be done all the time as a pattern or to be done at all by any young goalies. Learn the basics first and when you end up playing at a high level later you may use tricks like this sometimes against some shooters, but even then only very selectively. 

In this article I am not going to cover the depth part too much as our next article will be focused on how far you should be coming out.

Angle - one- or multidimensional issue?

Some goalies think their angles way too much the 1-dimensional way, how much do I come out and how much distance do I need to cover on my sides to cover the whole goal. You have to think vertically as well as horizontally. It's not only the matter how much distance from your pad or glove to the post, but also vertically like where are my gloves compared to the open space in the net.

Look at the photos and get a good understanding what I mean by this.

It's also a very common mistake to check the angles always only on your stance. Modern goalies play a lot down on the ice . Actual study showed goalies making their saves down on ice 78-92% of time.

So understand your angles both ways when standing up and when in your butterfly/down on the ice.

Articles in this series

1. Introduction to angles
2. Understand angles - Take advantage (This article)
3. How far should I come out?
4. Drills & training tips (To be published later)