How to Get the Most Out of a Goalie Practice Session

Photo: Seth J Sports

Whether it’s the middle of the season, or the middle of the offseason, goalie specific practice sessions are crucial to leveling up your game. These sessions are the time to focus on building new skills and good habits, and reinforcing the proper technique and execution of what you may be good at. A good goalie session can be led by a goalie coach, or done on your own with a couple good friends shooting. Whatever the circumstances may be, here are some tips for the most productive goalie session possible, so that you can get the most out of every session and improve your game as fast as possible.

Make a Plan

If you have a coach running your sessions, this one isn’t as important. The coach should make a plan for you and run you through it. But if you are on your own, it is crucial to know what exactly you want to work on, what the drills look like, and for how long you want to work on each one. Usually, you have hour long ice slots. You don’t want to spend this time figuring out what to do next, and then trying to figure out where to place pucks, AND having to describe to your shooters what exactly they are doing on the next drill. Know exactly what’s going on so you can immediately direct them on where to go and what to do.

It shouldn’t take too long to plan your goalie session, maybe only 10-15 minutes. If you can’t think of drills to do, there are plenty of useful ones online.

Your plan should consist of skating for about 15-20 minutes. Then, you probably want to throw in some basic save and tracking drills. After that, you can move onto drills that cover areas of your game you would like to improve.

Know what areas of your game you want to work on, and then make a plan. This way you get as much out of the 60 minutes as possible, and you don’t waste time or mental energy trying to figure out what to do when you are out there.

Think About Doing Everything Right

When you are working on something new, or breaking an old habit, it’s going to take a lot of intentional focus or thought. Maybe you want to work on stopping harder when you T- Push. Well every time you stop in your T-Push, you’re going to have to think about stopping as hard as you can. If you’re trying to improve your tracking, you’re going to have to focus on intentionally tracking every puck on and off of your body. And if you are thinking about hand placement in the butterfly, you’re going to have to be intentional with your hands every time you go into the butterfly.

The point is, now is the time to do everything right all the time. Try to be as perfect as you can on every rep. Perfect doesn’t mean robotic. It means doing everything the right way to the best of your ability.

At the same time, don’t overload your brain by trying to think about 16 things at once. Pick 1-3 things per goalie session you really want to make sure you execute perfectly, and when you get out there, be ultra intentional about being perfect when executing it. You will build good habits and improve quickly.

You don’t want to be thinking in games, so now is the time to do so.

Don’t Worry About Getting Scored On

If you’re focused on doing everything right, what does that mean you’re not focused on?— Stopping the puck. And that’s ok.

During a goalie session, we’re not worried about how many saves we make. There’s no scoreboard. Worry about that in games. For now, your goal is to improve as fast as possible. If you’re focusing on stopping hard in your T-Push and hand positioning while a shot is coming, your brain isn’t going to have the bandwidth to read and react to that shot as fast as possible, so you’re going to get scored on more often (this is why we don’t want to be thinking during games, and play with habit and instinct).

Often times, goalies will be so worried about stopping the puck in goalie sessions that they aren’t doing things the right way. You won’t improve as fast this way. Understand that you may have to get scored on a little more often now, so that come game time you’re scored on much less often when it counts. That is the ultimate goal of all the training right?

So don’t get frustrated. Whether you make the save or a puck goes in, think about whether you did everything right on that rep. Sometimes you may get scored on, but you did everything right. Other times, you may have a sloppy rep but you make the save. That’s no good.

Understand that your game is always a work in progress, and doing things right, even if you are getting scored on, means you are improving. If you allow yourself to get frustrated, you’re going to do even less right because you’re upset, and you’ll end up wasting the goalie session. You might even develop bad habits. Stay positive and focused on getting better.

If You Aren’t Getting Scored On, the Drills Are Too Easy

Everyone can feel good about themselves when they make a bunch of saves on shots from the tops of the circles. But guess what, if you aren’t getting scored on, the drills aren’t pushing you, and you’re not getting any better.

Design drills that push you. You want to do drills that are in tight, with players moving the puck and shooting from good scoring spots. Why? Because that’s where all the goals are scored from in a game- around the net. You want to be able to make as many saves as possible on dangerous scoring chances in a game, so design your drills that simulate dangerous scoring chances around the net. If you have friends out there shooting on you, this is great for them to improve their scoring touch too. Since they don’t get very many scoring chances throughout a game, they want to be able to capitalize on the ones they do get. This is great practice for them.

If you find you are improving at a particular drill you like, and they are having trouble scoring on that drill, figure out how to make it harder so that it’s more difficult for you. There are many ways to do this— maybe you add an extra back door option, or make the movement tougher on yourself, for example.

What you want to avoid when designing drill ideas, are shots from far out or players just walking in and shooting on you from the tops of the circles, because you see hundreds of these types of shots in practice. Goalie sessions are the time to focus on situations you don’t typically get to work on in practice, but are vital to be good at stopping come game time.

You May Want to Video It if Possible

We video all of the goalie sessions we do ourselves, and almost every goalie we have worked with says they really enjoy when we video their goalie lessons as well. Not only is it fun watching yourself make saves and improve, but it also allows you to go back through your goalie session and evaluate everything you did well, and some things you didn’t do well. You also may notice other bad habits you didn’t realize you had, and you can plan to work on those next goalie session.

It’s not hard to video your goalie sessions. All you need is a phone and cheap tripod. It’s more than worth it.

Have Fun

If you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing, you won’t be fully engaged, and you won’t get any better. Goalie sessions are hard work. Your legs are burning while you try to focus on something small and specific, all why you are trying to stop a puck. You are not going to consistently commit to them if you make yourself miserable every time you are on the ice.

Learn to enjoy the work. Enjoy being on the ice improving with everyone out there, even if you are getting scored on. At the end of the day, everyone on the ice is there to get better together and enjoy the process of doing so.

Be focused, but not miserable. Enjoy what you are doing, and you will improve at a high rate.