Goaltending Skills to Master

Most amateur teams do not have people who specifically coach goaltenders. Quite often, the goaltenders fend for themselves, face shots during drills, or minimally are instructed by a coach (if he is knowledgeable) when this leader might have other players practicing certain skills. Therefore, the coach must do his best to maximize his time spent in goaltender instruction so that goalies learn the following skills listed below. Finally, I suppose that the style of goaltending can be likened to a batting stance in baseball. It does not matter how you look as long as you perform well.

Necessary Goaltending Skills

How to move from post to post and position oneself in all situations that require this movement, especially moving to prevent an attacker coming from behind the net to stuff the puck
How to deflect the puck to the corner – off the pads, stick, blocker glove, skates
How to shoot the puck (backhand and forehand) to clear the zone and/or pass to a teammate
How to position oneself and play angles for all shots
How to hug the short-side post
How to play screen shots
When and how to stop the puck being “dumped in” around the boards and to set up a teammate for puck retrieval
How to stack pads for a sliding save
How to play breakaways
How to work in concert with defensemen in defending a “2 on 1”
How to play an attacker “cutting in” close to the crease from the outside
How to assume the basic position against a distant shot
How and when to poke-check
How to play a tricky, bouncy shot

If a goaltender does not know the proper procedure for each of these, chances are that he is limited in successfully performing that action.