How do I evaluate and select goalies at a tryout or camp? [DIY Guide]

[Law Goalie 147]

I've had a few people ask me this over the years, on and off MSH, so I thought a brief and informal guide might be helpful.

The selection of goalies for a team is one of the most important decisions a head coach can make. Increasingly, I've seen coaches delegate this to the team's goalie coach, on the theory that goaltending is so specialised that only a goalie coach can properly evaluate goalies. Despite being a goalie coach myself (when I'm lucky enough to fit it in), I do not recommend this. I think it's important for the head coach to get as much information as he/she can about the goalies they are considering, and part of that should, ideally, involve the services of an impartial goalie coach-- that is, one whose critical reputation is beyond reproach, or who has no vested interest in any of the goalies (eg. thousands of dollars of private coaching, paid by the goalie's parents).

If, however, your team or association can’t afford a goalie coach (fair enough!), or can’t find one willing to donate his/her time (one of them really should, if you ask), there are a few ways you can evaluate goaltenders without expert advice.

I will also admit that there are a lot of ‘materials’ posted on the internet for evaluating goalies: evaluation rubrics, grading sheets, guidelines, and so on. I have yet to see one of these that provided enough information for it to be used reasonably by a person who was not already expert in goaltending, or, worse, that was simply a useless piece of pseudo-pedagogy.

The purpose of most such materials, in general and far beyond hockey, is not to meaningfully understand or evaluate the students at hand, but to confuse and impress the people who are responsible for evaluating the instructor/evaluator. Huge, jargon-riddled rubrics appear impressive to most people who haven't had extensive experience in education, and they are impressive in large part because they seem indecipherably complicated and specialised. In almost every case, this is pure illusion; it is the superficial appearance of rigour where none in fact exists. Secondarily, such 'evaluation rubrics' serve as a red herring for the instructor/evaluator to shift any potential dispute over the evaluation from the coach to the written material. Any question as to why one goaltender was picked over another can be deflected away from the decision of the coach to the training materials; only a very rhetorically diligent person will know not to attempt to argue the curriculum or rubric and bring the matter back to the decisions made by the teacher. The materials are, in part, a trap into which potential conflicts can be diverted.

What follows is a general guide through a single tryout icetime at which you may be evaluating goalies.

However, even before the tryouts have begun, try to get as much information as you can on your potential goalies. Got to some of their games if you can (ie. if you have the time and inclination), but video is great as well-- and by video I mean raw video, not a highlight pack, preferably taken from right behind the net at the end nearest the goalie. Send this video to a goalie coach for evaluation. Some goalie coaches charge for this, but most will be happy to review a game or two and write a short summary of their observations as a one-time courtesy for a goalie; the real work of a goalie coach happens in true video analysis, that is, in videos that are essentially lectures on subjects relevant to the goalie in question, and in on-ice tutorials.

As a courtesy, I will happily review video of any goalie any MSH member sends me. All you have to do is post the video on Youtube and PM me the link. I'd suggest making the subsequent discussion public on MSH, but that it entirely a matter of privacy. (If you want to send me a little thank-you in beer-money, that's fine, but not even remotely requisite.)

As you approach the tryouts/camp, figure out which of your on-ice assistants (or possibly you yourself) will be watching the goalies (see below), and send them whatever information you have. You'll want this to include a brief outline of each goalie, as well as any specific evaluations you want done. If the evaluators have questions, they should ask well in advance.

If you anticipate a tough decision on the goalies at the tryouts, have a couple of people record them. This, too, can be sent to a goalie coach for evaluation.

On the day:

1) Before the goalies hit the ice, unless you’re handing out jerseys or pinnies with numbers on the front, you’re going to need to get some identifying information. My suggestion is to note down the colour of the jersey and mask, and the colours and brand of the pads. It’s easier to say to another coach, “Check out the kid in the black sweater and white Reeboks,” than “That one with the big pads.” Do not do this in advance; goalies often show up to tryouts, against all reason, with brand new gear, and if you've identified them incorrectly in your prepared materials, your evaluators will get confused.

2) While you are (or your assistant is) jotting down the above info, please make sure they’re wearing safe, approved masks. A helmet and cage is fine at lower levels and ages; a road hockey mask is not. You would be amazed how many times a quite competent goalie with cheap or stupid parents, or a goalie who is just painfully fashion-conscious and wants to ‘look like the big boys at the tryout’ will try to pull that one off. Please also check their cages for any obviously broken welds or damaged wires as you would any other player's cage. The last thing you want is to have your tryout effectively suspended by a kid by a kid who has to be taken off the ice with a steel bar stuck in his eye.

3) When the goalies go on the ice, it is imperative that you have one coach/evaluator to watch each group of goalies. Even if they’re starting in one group and then going to different nets, you need to have a set of eyes on each set of goalies at all times. You don't want to miss anything.

For generations, coaches have selected goalies based largely on who they happen to notice: what catches their eyes. They watch the practise as a whole, and when they notice a goalie getting burned or making a ‘big save’, they take note. A coach who evaluates goalies this way will only make the right selection by accident. Dominant goaltenders at your tryouts will not make ‘big saves’; they won’t need to. They will be so in control, so far ahead of the play that you won’t even notice them. They will be invisible to you, and you’ll end up picking the kid who was so continually behind the play and so desperately scrambling to keep up that you ‘noticed’ the saves he was making, and ‘noticed’ his apparent effort.

If you pick goalies based on what you ‘notice’ in the run of a tryout, you are picking your goalies based on a highlight reel: an unreliable, misleadingly selective sample.

4) When the goalies hit the ice, make them do at least a little ‘open skating’ with the players, whether it’s laps, circles, or whatever. This will not tell you who the best goalies are, but it will tell you if they can skate and move athletically in their equipment. Don’t worry about their point-to-point speed, and focus their edge control instead. However, forcing goalies to skate circles for more than a lap or two quickly becomes pointless: a little is fine, and very informative; too much is a waste of icetime.

If some of this open skating involves puck-control, that is totally fine: a goalie who can handle the puck well, especially while skating, can be a terrific asset, and one who doesn’t handle it well can be developed through the year with proper coaching. Make note of this.

5) As early as possible, break the goalies off into a separate group (or groups) for evaluation.

The first thing you’ll want to evaluate is movement. Any goalie who has had any training will be able to give you a demonstration of basic skating movements. You don't need to provide any specifics: just tell the goalie you want them to show you their basic skating movements. This is a good warmup for them, but not an especially useful tool for evaluation, because of the phenomenon of ‘the driving range goalie’.

The driving range goalie is one who appears to move remarkably well in a skating demonstration, but has no idea how to apply that sort of movement to preventing goals or stopping shots. To put it another way, a driving range goalies will be able to perform a variety of highly stylized and choreographed ‘dance moves’ in his equipment, but will be unable to translate that impressive demonstration into a game or even a game-like situation. The driving-range goalie is an ice-dancer in an armoured suit, not an ice hockey goaltender. He has been trained like a seal to move this way in order to impress two groups of people, for the benefit of one person: the intended audience is the goalie and his family on the one hand, and coaches who don't know better on the other.

That said, any goalie who has had a reasonable amount of training will be able to show you some basic skating movements, and to describe to the non-expert coach what he/she just demonstrated. This also lets you get a sense of the kid’s attitude and verbal capacity.

6) The next step is to throw a wrinkle at the goalies that can expose a driving range goalie’s dependence on choreography. Tell the goalies, one at a time, to imagine a play or a series of plays unfolding in front of them, skating and moving as they would to address such a play. Suggest that a 5-on-3 power play might be a good example. When the goalies finish, ask them to explain the imaginary play they faced. Goalies who fall into repetitive movements, and who can’t give a good explanation of their movements, lack imaginative power this is crucial for goalies to develop strong anticipation, and to learn from their experiences. Still, this isn’t enough.

7) Now that you/your non-specialist evaluator has seen the goalies skating for a while, they’ll probably have a pretty good sense of who’s who, and what they can do. As a final puck-free movement exercise, pair the goalies up with their apparent competitors (and make note of the pairings) and have those pairs play ‘The Mirror Game’ one pair at a time.

The goalies will probably have all done this before, but if they haven’t, the basic idea is that one goalie in the pair is the ‘lead’ and the other is the ‘mirror’. The lead makes movements — skating movements, save movements, head-stands, whatever — and the mirror has to duplicate them as quickly and reliably as possible. After a little while (age appropriate) give them a short beak, and then switch them, so that the mirror now leads the other goalie. This allows you to start to make direct comparisons of movement and skating skills.

8) At some point, you’re going to want to shoot on these goalies, and they're going to want to show you what they can do in live play.

When the shooting drills start, draw a strict distinction between drills that contain reasonable and unreasonable scoring situations. For example, a drill that presents a goalie with an endless stream of wing rushes -- including, of course, some players who will ignore instructions to shoot at an arbitrary distance and will insist on showing you their shootout moves -- is not a reasonable set of scoring chances. In a game, the puck does not magically teleport back to another play who is approaching at full speed the second it touches the goalie's body. In fact, even if you can provide adequate time in between shots for the goalie not only to recoer to his/her feet, but to reset to the centre of the crossbar (See the "Inside-Out" angles thread...) skate to their desired position, stop, and then face the next shot, this still doesn't tell you much if anything about the goalie, except that they play their angles correctly under very limited conditions.

However, sometimes in the course of evaluating skaters it is necessary to use your goalies as shooter-tutors. Fair enough: goalies are, at most, roughly one-tenth of a team's players, and they can't receive constant preferential treatment. They're there for themselves, but also for the team's use.

During unreasonable drills that will tell you nothing meaningful about the goalies, make sure they get to rotate in and out of net regularly, and have your evaluators watch the goalies who are not facing shots.

Do they look exhausted, or do they look like this is pretty easy for them? If they look like it's easy for them, you may want to scrutinize their work rate and compete level; if they look exhausted, fitness may be a concern. You may want to take a kid who has talent but lacks conditioning, in the hope that you can get him into some good off-ice habits, or you may not; you may want to ask about that in an interview, or conduct some off-ice testing. Maybe the kid who isn't working hard knows the drill is pointless, and is intelligently saving himself, but maybe it's a sign that he's aloof and uninvolved.

Are they paying attention, or horsing around? If they're horsing around, is one of them instigating? Is it harmless fun or something less desirable? Maybe your team needs a little levity in the dressingroom; you might or might not want that in the mix, given the emotional composition of the rest of your team. Make a note to observe them off the ice on that basis, and maybe in an interview later.

If they're paying attention, are they anti-socially ignoring everyone around them, or are they relaxed and conversant but dialled-in on the task at hand? If a kid is essentially mute on the ice, you'll definitely want to see how he interacts off the ice with his potential team-mates, and probably speak to him later. You may be fine taking on a goalie-savant, or you may not. Some kids are just quiet but otherwise entirely good; others are quiet because something's off. Try to find out. Especially if you're coaching contact hockey, you need a goalie who can communicate, at least to the extent of giving his D simple heads-up and directional calls, if not running the entire defensive scheme himself.

Personally, I love to see a goalie who works on his/her movement between drills, and especially if that time is used to imaginatively reconstruct and respond to prior scoring plays. A goalie who has the imaginative capacity to be his/her own video analyst by sheer strength of memory is not only a great asset to a team, but a kid worth some investment: this is a human who is learning to learn in very interesting ways.

9) A few drills never to use when evaluating goalies, but which are used constantly to evaluate goalies (poorly!):

A) the 'Horseshoe';

B) the 'alternating Horseshoe';

C) the 'rapid-fire', where one stationary coach/evaluator/player sits in the slot pounding one puck after another at a stationary goalie; possibly the stupidest drill ever invented.

D) any version of the 'rapid-fire' involving pointless 'up-and-downs' or leg-flailing between shots.

Some coaches often perform these drills to 'test' goalies because they simply don't know any better, or because they can't think of an alternative. That's by no means ideal for the goalies or for the team, but it is understandable. However, any goalie coach you see performing the above drills should be 'rapidly fired' on the spot, with the sole exception of a coach who can explain instantly that the purpose of the drill was to show the goalie(s) that such drills are utterly futile. Even if the goalie coach is a volunteer, you do not want this person near your goalies one minute longer if he thinks these are legitimate exercises. Thank the coach for his/her time, throw the coach off the ice, and give your goalies something more athletically meaningful to do, like some trigonometry problems or an essay on Pindar.

10) As soon as possible, try to get the goalies to face some game-like situations. I don't mean starting a scrimmage, of course, but creating drills that end in realistic scoring chances. Small-area games are especially good for this, and if the rink has extra nets, you can have four, six, even eight goalies under evaluation at once. Such drills do not and should not be entirely for the goalies' benefit; any drill that can be used to evaluate goal-scoring ability under realistic conditions can also be used to evaluate goal-tending.

A few sub-suggestions:

A) see how the goalies handle plays behind and around the net, with a variety of defensive situations (e.g. a 2v1 with one player below and one above the goal-line);

B) see how the goalie handles power-play situations: are they constantly chasing the play, or do they seem to be one step ahead mentally and positionally?

C) unless your league has shootouts, the only breakaway that will tell you anything about the goalie is a breakaway with pursuit

D) puck battles (eg. with two skaters starting side-by-side at the blue-line and a loose puck in the high slot) can be very telling; some goalies are actually better against breakaways than 1v1s, because the defensive player throws in a degree of unpredictability that some goalies can't handle well.

E) simple screen-drills (e.g with a single player screening/tipping pucks at the top of the crease) are an excellent way to test your goalies with a realistic but readily observable, less contingent situation.

F) if you're going to run dump-in/break-out drills, even with younger goalies, try to get them involved; dump a few right on the net, but also a few near the net; see how they handle it. Some goalies will jump on any puck in front of them and cover it; this is a good chance to see how coachable they are, whether they can listen and adapt.

11) After the first tryout (or at least the first one with goalies), get together with your evaluators and go over what they've seen. At this point, you can correlate any prior information you might have with what the evaluators observed at the tryout, but bear in mind that evaluators (particularly non-specialists) may have different standards. What you're looking for, really are two things: reasoned rankings within each instructor's group, and of those ranked goalies, who do they consider to be genuine candidates at this level of play. This will allow you to do two things: eliminate goalies who simply can't handle the level of play, and create more relevant groupings for the next skate. Ultimately, you may have the same number of goalies at both of the first two skates; don't cut anyone you aren't obligated to cut. In some ways, this would be the best outcome, since what you really want to do is to create new groupings of similarly ranked goalies, putting the best group with your most knowledgeable evaluator, and so on down. This way, you'll get much better contextual information on the goalies, and you can be sure you made the right call. This will also let you contextualise any video you send to a goalie coach for review in terms of who you think the best candidates are.

12) Finally, I'll conclude with a list of things not to allow to unduly influence your judgement:

A) Size matters, but less than you'd think; do not pick the biggest goalie merely because he's big.

B) Conversely, do not be overly impressed with smaller goalies who zip around like waterbugs merely because they are moving quickly; if the kid grows, that early coordination may go up in smoke, and a superficially 'slower', more methodical goalie may actually be more positionally and athletically sound. (Recall their earlier point about 'goalies you notice' not necessarily being the best ones.

C) Resist the urge to be charmed by excessive movements; this relates both to B) above and to the earlier point about driving-range goalies. Some goalies have been trained to add a bunch of silly little 'pops' (to use a term from dance) to their movement; again, they have either been taught to do this by a goalie coach who is trying to impress rather than instruct, or they picked it up from some other show-off goalie and nobody bothered to correct the behaviour.

Typical example of exaggerated movement include: little 'kicks' at the end of a stop, excessive waving of the hands and gloves, especially at or above eye-level, swinging of the stick and shoulders, and so on. A good video example, courtesy of Steve McKichan:

Any questions, fire away.

[minnsy 15]

"C) the 'rapid-fire', where one stationary coach/evaluator/player sits in the slot pounding one puck after another at a stationary goalie; possibly the stupidest drill ever invented."

^ THIS. I cannot emphasize how much this drill irritates me. It trains so many bad habits:
a) not following the puck into the body/glove/pads with your eyes.
b) not following the rebound
c) focusing on more than one puck at a time (when will a goalie ever face more than one puck at any given time during a game?!)

[minnsy 15]

"A) Size matters, but less than you'd think; do not pick the biggest goalie merely because he's big."

I have a question about evaluating the size of a goalie. How do we balance the skill vs. size evaluation? I.e. how do we evaluate the skill/other factors of a smaller goalie that would make up for a lack of size?

If I'm looking at two goalies, one 6'1" and the other 5'9", what in your mind would justify taking the shorter of the two?

On a side note, do you ever look at the size of the parents when evaluating younger goaltenders? I've heard stories of coaches using the parents' size to see how much they can expect a 14-16 year old kid to grow.

[chippa13 1844]

A smaller goalie who plays better angles and has stronger positional awareness will trump size any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I've played against goalies 6'5" and up who have plenty of holes and show you lots of net and I've played against goalies as small as 5'7" who give you nothing and make it a struggle to beat them.

[MThockeydad 469]

Thank you, Law Goalie.

Have you ever written a tutorial on coaching goalies? (If yes, you don't have to find it for me, I'll search)

"C) the 'rapid-fire', where one stationary coach/evaluator/player sits in the slot pounding one puck after another at a stationary goalie; possibly the stupidest drill ever invented."

^ THIS. I cannot emphasize how much this drill irritates me. It trains so many bad habits:

a) not following the puck into the body/glove/pads with your eyes.

b) not following the rebound

c) focusing on more than one puck at a time (when will a goalie ever face more than one puck at any given time during a game?!)

:lol: At least make eye contact with the goalie and look for a head nod!

When coaching young goalies, do you prefer to mix things up and show them a variety of different shots, or work with them on a particular weakness (2-hole, for example)?

[Thinkingjack 51]

this is the greatest post i have ever read, i wish more hockey team coaches read this for tryouts. I constantly see them go with the kids who are running around their crease in a scramble because they're so late and need to catch up and the kids who are positionally ahead and excelling making every save look easy and routine always get cut and go home disappointed when they in fact were the superior goalie.