back door shots

[gizmo]

Hey gang, I was hoping to get some advice on stopping back door shots. I coaching u10,u12, and u14 goalies. we always face two teams that always, I mean always use back door shots. what I am refering to is they work the puck deep into a corner, make a strong move towards the net, making the goalie commit to the shot then making a hard pass it to a forward sitting on the other post who just redirects it into our net. granted alot of it has to be delt with from our defense but that isn't happening. here is what we are focussing on. 1) poke check the pass if close enough to the crease. 2) hard t drag to the post. this last tournament we were playing on "sport ice" so we were able to two pad slide to the back side that stopped the first 5 or 6 shots, but then they just waited until our goalie was down and roofed it on us. getting 5 goals that way. another factor is we play mostly on concrete (home court), but we also play on wood, sport ice, and sport court. (sport ice is sport court with out the bumps in it) during our tournaments. so I was trying to find a one size fits all technique for the different courts, and the different abilities of my goalies. if we were on ice I could teach a butterfly slide to the back post that that just doesn't happen on three of the types of courts. Any ideas?

[ChrisMangano]

Check out the "split butterfly" at www.overdriveblade.com. I think this may work. It allows the goalie to cover the initial shot, while at the same time ready to spring to the other side of the net. Plus they can get to the other side of the net on their feet. It may take some time to teach, but in the long run it may solve the problem.

[WERNER 1]

Just to throw out some basics here:

1. Puck behind the goal line= goalie hugging the post keeping the rest of his body along the goal line/mouth.

2. Puck comes across the goal line= goalie square to the puck. (Unfortunantly when you keep getting burned by the back door you have a tendancy to start cheating.......then you get burned by the first guy. )

If there is the possibility of of actually getting across in time to make the save, the goalie has to be able to anticipate the pass, and have explosive enough moves to get across in time......concentrating on squaring up with the shooters stick, not the shooter.

Another thought along these lines is- When the puck carrier goes deep into the corner, this is the time that the goalie can "look off" of the puck to get an idea of where every one is positioned......especialy the back door shooter( Taking note of what hand shot he his.)

In reality, this is actually a "D" problem not really a goalie problem (which you have already stated.) It seems to me that it would be easier to instruct the D than I would be to try and get the goalie to perform a miracalus save.


A simple "D" plan:

Two D men back, the puck goes into the left corner, the left D goes to it and the right D stays in the slot tying up any sticks that might be there(This would include the backdoor guy, Let the forwards worry about the point guys breaking in) . The opposite is true when the puck goes into the other corner. If the D that stays in the slot tries to position himself between the puck and the backdoor shooter in hopes of intercepting a pass, chances are the pass will get through, and a goal will result. If the backdoor shooters stick was tied up, there is no chance of him getting a shot off. The plus side of tying up the shooters stick is that your own D will not be able to make a niffty deflection into your own net! (Man that really burns me up!!!!! )

Hope some of this helps.

Rick

[gizmo]

Thanks for the replies everyone. the split bf looks intresting but there seems to be two draw backs to it, of the surface's we play on only the sport ice court is "slide friendly" and give us the surface to get enough slide on the forward or trailing pad, depending on you initial push, to accomplish it and second only one goalie I have really has the leg strength to accomplish it fast enough. also our home court it would be impossible to practice it. (actually just a side note on this subject I mod'ed my old vaughns like Mont did with the kevlar on the inner gussets and toe area and I can bf slide across the crease on concrete... unfourtunately I can't get a ruling on whether my kids can do it and still be considered legal or not... but we can wear pad covers with plastic plates in the inner gusset and the help tremendously)
Rick, your assessment of the situation was right on the money it really does need to be dealt with from a D-man position but like I said. It just isn't happening. we are getting out muscled on the crease. our man is there he just didn't have the horse power to contol thier stick long enough for the puck to pass through the crease area. that and our forwards aren't coming back to the top of the slot to free up our dfense to deal with the back door. also just to frustrate our goalies even more our defense deflected one of the passes in and then we got burned cheating on the pass just like you said less then a minute later. actually it was pretty humorous... the puck went to the corner, their forward beats our d-man, skates in on the goal from the corner, fans on the pass, goalie breaks hard to the back post and the forward tucks the puck in the net. as the ref skated past our bench he said to me " your goalie is cursing pretty good out there coach" my reply was " I'm sure he is ref, I'm sure he is" it was one of those games. we lost 7-1

[WERNER 1]

You know what they say......

These things build character. and........we're just here to have fun,...right?

Good luck!

[gizmo]

well that explains all the charactors on the team....that second comment brings up a really good question. My goalies work their tails of in practice. out of all of them there is only one that is a slackard, and its not so much that, as it is his age....15 and has both gas fumes and perfume fumes on the brain. (can tell you what the girl in the third row is wearing but couldn't tell you the color of sweaters the other team is sporting etc etc.) what would be a good fun practice for after a great tournament or game. usually after a really good practice or really good showing at a tourny I cut them alot of slack in the end of practice skating drills. (we practice 2-3 times a week) so all work and no play, especially for the age groups makes for burned out goalies. every once in a while we have the goalies skate as forwards, forwards skate as defense, and put the defense in the pads...that is usually good for a few laughs and everyone seems to enjoy that. but I'm still looking for a couple of good ideas. any comments would be helpfull.