When it comes to stopping a scorer in a one-on-one situation, NHL goalies are better than they’ve ever been. The league-wide save percentage has dipped in recent years — steadily declining from.910 in 2019-20 to.900 this season — as offensive strategies improve and shooters find ways to beat goalies with screens, deflections and backdoor plays. Beating a goaltender with a clean shot has become incredibly difficult.
To an extent, these commonly-used phrases are true. Modern goalies are such good skaters that they’re usually in excellent position, giving shooters very little net to shoot at. They’ve trained their entire lives, specializing in reading shots, so it takes something truly exceptional to get the puck past them when they have their feet set and clear vision of the shot.
In response, today’s elite scorers are finding ways to use these goalies’ reads against them. They pick up on the clues goalies are using to predict shot locations, and then give the netminder false information in an attempt to fool them. Being an elite scorer is becoming less about who can shoot the puck the hardest, or even the most accurately, and more about who can conceal their true intentions and mislead the opposition with deception.
We’ll look at specific examples of these subtle acts of deception, and why they’re so effective, by examining four of the league’s craftiest goal-scorers: Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, William Nylander and Kyle Connor.
First, it’s important to understand how goalies react to shots. The term “lightning-quick reflexes” is often overstated. Yes, these netminders have exceptional reaction time, but the human body has limitations.
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