On Sunday in Las Vegas, after Minnesota Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian poked the puck out of the defensive zone and started a 2-on-1 break the other way, forward Ryan Hartman had the option to pass or fire a shot on the Vegas net. Encouraged by his coach to have a “shoot first” mentality and armed with some good intelligence on the tendencies of Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill, Hartman ripped a wrist shot to the goalie’s glove side, and gave the Wild a 1-0 lead.
“I was pretty determined I was going to shoot the whole time,” Hartman said after the game. “We talked about where we wanted to shoot on (Hill) and that was one of the spots.”
Much like football teams use video to determine what play an opponent is likely to run in a certain situation, and baseball teams study opposing pitchers to have a hunch about whether a fastball or a slider is headed their way with a 2-1 count and a runner on second, the Wild – like all NHL teams – do some extensive homework on the goalies they face, looking for weak spots in their armor.
“The first time you see a guy, you spend a lot of time – like hours and hours – to figure out what’s his game and his stats and his tendencies and stuff,” said Wild goalie coach Freddie Chabot, admitting that you get familiar with what a certain goalie will do in certain situations.
But all of that research can be thrown out the window if a goalie switches jerseys following a trade or a free agent move.
“Sometimes when you change teams and there’s a different defense, you give up different goals, and then you have to make adjustments on what you see and what you tell the players,” Chabot said, adding that scouting reports are carefully cultivated so there’s still a fair amount of instinct involved when offensive opportunities arise.
“You’ve got to pick what you tell the players. You don’t want them to think too much,” said Chabot, who took on the team’s goalie coach role in 2020. “You want them to just execute, and when you have a chance to shoot, shoot the puck and if a guy is more vulnerable to passing plays, you let them know that too.”
On Hartman’s goal, he had forward Freddie Gaudreau available as a passing option, causing the Vegas defender and even Hill to perhaps cheat a little in case there was a pass, which made Hartman’s choice to shoot the right one.
“That was another point in practice today, whether we’re working on line rushes or in-zone plays, it was one pass and a trigger,” Wild head coach John Hynes said following the team’s morning skate on Tuesday. “More of an attack mindset, less on the perimeter, less east-west. Let’s get to where we’re going to be more threatening from an offensive perspective.”
For Wild players, goalie scouting is a big help. It’s advantageous to know where the “hot spots” are to put the puck with the highest chance of success. They admit goalies scout themselves, too, so you have to be able to read a play in order to get the puck to the back of the net.
“You’ve got little stuff, but you have to make reads and shoot with what’s open,” forward Matt Boldy said. “You have an idea of weaknesses, but it’s a quick game. Everything we’re seeing their goalie coach is telling them as well.”
Chabot, whose resume includes 32 games at the NHL level for a trio of teams, and 17 years as a pro hockey player himself, does the bulk of his work with the Wild’s goalies. He watches the play of Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury closely for places where they are giving up goals, and works with them to make immediate adjustments.
Asked about his own weak spots as a goalie for the Canadiens, Kings and Flyers, Chabot joked he didn’t have any before noting he’d “have made a lot more money if that was true.”
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