Most goalies spend practice either doing drills built for skaters or standing in the net facing a firing squad. Neither one builds skill. Here's a better approach — and it fits inside any practice plan.
Read the guide ↓Coaching Guide
Goalie-specific practice doesn't require a goalie coach. It requires knowing what a few simple drills are, what to watch for when you run them, and how to structure shooting so the goalie actually builds habits instead of just filling in the net.
The default for most volunteer coaches is to have the goalie join skating and conditioning drills alongside the skaters, then stand in net for shooting drills. This isn't wrong — goalies do benefit from the cardio — but it leaves out the part that actually develops them.
Goalie-specific footwork and positioning can't be learned through skating drills built for skaters. And a goalie standing in net facing back-to-back shots with no time to reset isn't building habits — they're surviving. When shots come too fast, the natural response is to flinch, drop early, and guess. Done over a season, those become the habits.
The good news: you don't need extra ice time or a specialist. You need about five minutes of focused footwork during skating drills and a more deliberate approach to the shooting drills you're already running.
Every save starts from the ready stance, and most saves that get missed trace back to starting from a poor one. You don't need to correct every detail, but knowing what a good ready stance looks like lets you spot the most common problems.
Feet — slightly wider than shoulder width, both skates parallel, toes forward. Not so wide they can't push off cleanly, not so narrow they're standing like a skater.
Knees — bent forward over the toes, with weight on the balls of the feet. A common mistake in young goalies is bending at the waist with straight knees. The knee bend is what loads the legs for a quick push.
Chest — up and forward. The shooter should be able to see the logo on the front of the jersey. A goalie who rounds their back or drops their chin is collapsing their frame and giving the shooter more net.
Glove — out in front of the body, not tucked against the torso or resting on the thigh. If the glove drops low or behind the pad, the goalie is giving up reaction time on the glove side.
Stick — mostly flat on the ice, roughly 8–12 inches in front of the skates. If the stick is perpendicular to the ice, shots that hit it bounce straight back as a rebound rather than being directed to the corner.
A useful check: get your goalie into their stance, then give them a light push on the shoulder. If they wobble or take a step, they're not balanced. A goalie in a solid ready stance absorbs that push without moving their feet.
While your skaters are running their own footwork drills, you can run these alongside them along the red line. Have the goalie travel back and forth facing the same direction, maintaining their ready stance throughout. Watch for: stick on the ice, glove hand up, head up.
Shuffle — short lateral pushes used to track a moving shooter while staying square. This is the most-used movement in game situations. Watch that the goalie doesn't cross their feet or let their stick lift off the ice mid-movement.
T-push — a larger, loaded-leg push used to cover greater distance quickly. The goalie plants one skate perpendicular (the "T"), loads the leg, and drives laterally. Watch that the movement stays in a straight line — young goalies often overshoot and need an extra correction step.
Half-butterfly push — for slightly older goalies. Dropping to one knee and pushing laterally to cover a wide rebound or backdoor pass. The emphasis is on recovering quickly into the ready stance after the push.
Each of these takes two to three minutes to run well. You don't need to run all three every practice — one focused movement type per session is enough.
This is the most practical shooting drill for non-specialist coaches and the one most likely to actually build habits. Stand at the top of the circles with 15 pucks. Before you start, tell your goalie: stay on your feet, make all saves with your stick, and steer the puck — don't just stop it.
That order is intentional: middle shots often generate rebounds that travel left or right, so it helps to have practiced both sides first. After each save, finish the rebound. This teaches the goalie that the play isn't over until the puck is somewhere safe — and gets them thinking about rebound direction, not just the initial save.
The goals of this drill are simple: track the puck all the way to the stick, use the stick to steer the puck toward a corner, and practice covering or clearing anything that doesn't go cleanly to the corner. As the goalie develops, you can drop the no-butterfly restriction and add shots to the glove, the blocker, and off the ice.
When skaters bunch up and fire shots one immediately after another, the goalie has no time to reset into a good position. This isn't a minor inconvenience — it's the single most common source of bad goalie habits in team practice.
When a goalie can't reset, they stop trying to get to the right position before the shot and start guessing where the next puck is going. Guessing causes flinching. Flinching breaks tracking. Done repeatedly over a season, this sequence wires a subtle flinch into the goalie's response that is genuinely hard to undo.
The fix is simple: enforce a pause between shots. It doesn't have to be long — even a few seconds is enough for a goalie to reset their stance and focus on the next shot. Tell your shooters explicitly: wait until the goalie is set before you shoot. This one rule, applied consistently, changes what your goalie learns in every drill.
Beyond drills and shot spacing, a few consistent habits on your part go a long way.
Warn before drills. Give your goalie a heads-up before any shooting drill starts — where the shots are coming from, what the format is, what you want them to focus on. A goalie who knows what's coming can set up properly and actually work on something. A goalie who gets surprised just reacts.
Watch for tracking and stick, not just saves. A save made with eyes closed teaches the wrong lesson. A goalie who tracks perfectly but gets beat on a well-placed shot is further ahead than one who flopped across the crease and got lucky. Watch for what habit was reinforced, not just whether the puck went in.
One or two corrections per session. Pick the most important habit to reinforce and stay on it. "Great — you tracked that one all the way in" or "stick on the ice before you drop" sticks. A list of five things doesn't. Over a full season, consistent reinforcement of three things beats scattered feedback on thirty.
End on a save. Every session, make the last shot one your goalie can stop. They'll carry that feeling into the next practice.
Key Takeaways
The full Goalie Guide training covers drills, habit development, game-day support, and communication — in ten short modules, one flat fee, no goalie experience required.