Playing at the Top of the Crease
By: Shaun Smith – Absolute Mental Training

For this week’s article, I’m going to answer a question from a member of The Goalie Guild that was offered up during one of their live goalie chats. We were discussing the play of different NHL goalies when the question was asked: “How do I train my mind to play at the top of the crease on a consistent basis?”

This is a great question as almost every goalie realizes that when they come out to the top of their crease they will cover more of the net making it harder to get scored on. Also, when goalies are out at the top of their crease they don’t have to reach as far to make saves increasing the likelihood that they will stop the puck as well as having better control of their rebounds.

To answer this question the first issue that we need to look at is why goalies continue to play deep even though there are a number of benefits that will come from playing at the top of their crease…

Click here to read the rest of Shaun’s latest column!