When Alfie Michaud, an assistant men’s hockey coach at Maine, works with a group of youth goalies, he lines them up on the ice and asks them a simple question.
“What’s the most important thing for you guys?”
The goalies start shouting out things important to tending the net. Their stick, their hands, how quick their feet are.
Then Michaud tells them to close their eyes and he moves 10 feet to be on the other side of them. When he tells them to open their eyes, the netminders get hit with a dose of reality.
“Don’t you think your eyes might be pretty important?” Michaud asks the group.
Whether it be eyes to track pucks and locate shooters, hands to glove a shot down or their stick to poke-check a nearby puck carrier, various things are vital to the success of any goalie.
That’s why developing young goalies — and choosing the right path — can be a challenge for players, families, agents and coaches.
There isn’t one correct way to develop a goalie. What works for one player might not necessarily work for another.
But there are developmental trends to follow. And some paths have a higher chance of success than others.
Where it starts
Along with being an assistant coach for the Boston University men’s team, Brian Daccord is the founder and president of Stop It Goaltending.
At Stop It Goaltending, Daccord is working with goalies of all ages through lessons, summer programs, apps and The Bridge — a season-long academy program.
Daccord’s development always begins in the same place.
“All the foundation starts with skating,” he said.
But, since Daccord works with lots of teenagers, he knows kids aren’t prone to listening. So he opts for acronyms to drive home his points.
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The first is P.A.D.: position, angle and depth.
“That’s what it all comes down to,” Daccord said. “Understanding what position to be in, your angle and your depth.”
Then comes A.B.C.D. when talking about depth: aggressive, base, conservative or deep.
“You have to know your ability to be square to a puck,” Daccord said. “You want to know when to be square, when to be under square and when to be over square.”
Michaud runs a goalie camp in Maine during the summer with youth hockey players. Improving their skating as one of the primary focuses. But there’s a way to do it without taking the fun out of it.
“It’s just trying to make it fun where they’re competing and skating, but they don’t really realize they’re skating because we’re playing games or doing stuff that’s a little more fun. Because I think our sport is very specialized and these kids, sometimes, it’s too much,” Michaud said.
The specialization element of goaltending is something that has extended into all of youth hockey. More than ever, both skaters and goalies are putting down their baseball bats, lacrosse sticks and soccer cleats in exchange for more time on the ice.
For a young goalie, that can have a negative impact.
Playing other sports yields a higher level of athleticism, which makes for better goaltenders. Playing a sport like baseball helps with hand-eye coordination and catching. Lacrosse drastically improves hockey goalies’ hands. Soccer improves hockey goalies’ abilities to use their feet.
“It’s actually super valuable for them to play different sports,” said Michigan State associate head coach Jared DeMichiel, a former goalie. “Too often, young goalies are playing hockey year-round where I think playing soccer in the fall or baseball, lacrosse or basketball or tennis are sports that can be really helpful to a young goalie. Especially the racket sports when a young goalie is using his stick and things of that nature.”
Picking a youth team
When DeMichiel was growing up in Harwinton, Conn., his father was more of a baseball guy than a hockey guy. That meant using baseball analogies.
So when it came time for DeMichiel, a goalie, to pick youth teams to play on, his father always resorted to making a baseball point.
“As a baseball player, what makes more sense: Getting more at-bats or getting less at-bats?” DeMichiel’s father said to him.
What DeMichiel’s father was comparing at-bats to was facing the most amount of shots.
“He was just like, ‘No, you’re going to face more shots and make more saves. That’s going to be the best thing for you,’” DeMichiel recalled his father saying. “I remember growing up being like, ‘Dad, this stinks. I’m on a crappy team. I’m facing a gazillion shots here.’”
DeMichiel went on to be a goaltender at Division 1 RIT before spending time in the AHL and ECHL. He’s since realized that his father may have been on to something with his strategy.
“I agree with him,” DeMichiel said. “I do think winning is a skill, but, especially for young goalies, you have to face so many different shots in different situations. I feel like that’s the only way to learn from those different situations is by facing a lot of repetition.”
Oftentimes, higher-end goalies play on the best teams during their U14 and U15 seasons, as well as before that. Yes, they may face a lot of shots from the best players in practice, but they’re missing out on valuable experience when they may only face 10 shots in any given game.
“What supersedes the value of getting good shots from good players in practice is the consequence of giving up a goal in the game,” Daccord said. “The consequence of giving up a goal in the game cannot be duplicated in practice. It is apples and oranges and it’s not the same thing.
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“Therefore the goalie that plays on a team that gets shots has more opportunities to stop shots with consequences.”
That doesn’t mean goalies should be forcing themselves to play at the highest level. One thing matters more than level: environment.
“The thing about goaltending is that it’s such a long road,” Daccord said. “You need to be in the right position, the right environment because it’s such a demanding psychological position that you have to build passion for that position. You have to be on a team where you’re in the right place, it’s a good fit for you, in terms of your relationship with the coach and the other players and parents.
“When a kid is in a good environment, he or she is going to build that passion and that love and enjoyment of the position because as the pyramid gets tighter and as they get older, they’re going to have to go through adversity and they’re going to have to show resiliency. The only way that you’re going to build that bounce-back and that resiliency is because they had so much fun and so much enjoyment while they were on the way up. That’s what you tie into and that’s what pushes you through the hard times.”
That strong environment ties in with facing boatloads of shots every game. Being on a “crappy” team may weigh heavier on a player than the chance to make 40 saves per matchup.
In those instances, that’s when coaches must institute different strategies. The best, according to Daccord, is treating every period like a game. Focus on winning the first period. Then move on and start fresh in the second period.
“That gives them a chance every period because most of the time over the course of the entire game, they’re not going to win,” he said.
If that strong environment happens to be a very good team, that’s fine because there are going to be different challenges that goalie faces.
“There’s different pressures when you’re on a really good team, too. People will say, ‘He doesn’t get any work.’ Well, believe me, I guarantee that goalie standing in there is getting work mentally,” Michaud said. “You’re expected to win, so there’s a pressure to win. It’s a perceived pressure that you put on yourself, but you’re training that.
“You’re training how to stay in the moment. You might only get 10 shots but yeah, you’ve still got to find ways to make sure you still give up less goals than the guy across from you when he’s maybe getting 40 shots. Those aren’t fun games to play either.”
Picking where to play in high school
When Brian Daccord’s son, Joey (North Andover, Mass.), arrived at Cushing Academy as a repeat sophomore in the fall of 2012, he had already played 47 games of high school hockey at North Andover High School in the MIAA.
It was a lower level than prep. But Joey was playing games and getting game repetitions.
“If he goes to Cushing as a freshman and instead of starting two years at North Andover High School and he sits on the bench for two years and watches other kids play hockey, by the time he gets to be a junior, they’re recruiting over him,” Brian Daccord said. “That’s just the way it is.”
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Joey had a strong, three-year career at Cushing before posting a .904 save percentage in 48 games with the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL in 2015-16. Then came three years at Arizona State. He began his professional career in 2019, spending time in the Ottawa Senators organization and Seattle Kraken organization.
This past season was Joey’s first full one in the NHL. He posted a terrific 2.46 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage in 50 games with the Kraken.
It’s been a long road.
A decade before Joey Daccord suited up for Cushing, Cory Schneider (Marblehead, Mass.) tended the net for Phillips Andover.
Schnieder was a star for Andover from 2002-04, carrying the Big Blue as one of the best teams in prep hockey. His numbers were outstanding at face value — a 1.81 GAA and a .942 save percentage in 2002-03; a 1.33 GAA and a .959 save percentage in 2003-04.
Upon a deeper dive, they were even better. Schneider posted those sparking numbers while often being under siege with shots. In 2003, he ranked fifth in the region in shots faced (632). He finished fifth (757) again the next season.
“Andover at that time was a middle-of-the-pack team,” DeMichiel said. “But Cory faced a lot of shots. He ended up bringing them all the way to the prep school semifinals. I think for him, that was really valuable. His game grew. He improved. He faced really good teams. It was on him to be one of the best players on the ice every single game.”
The most recent example of what Schnieder was able to do was Rudy Guimond with Taft in 2022-23. Taft had gone 7-13-2 the season before.
Guimond carried Taft to a 20-8-0 record. The 20th victory was a win over Salisbury in the Large School championship. Guimond, a Yale commit, made 49 saves. He finished the season with over 1,000 shots faced and a 2.34 GAA with a .943 save percentage.
The reward? He was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the sixth round the following June.
“I think the Rudy scenario where you’re probably on a good, not great team is probably the best-case scenario,” Providence men’s assistant coach Joel Beal said. “You’re relied on to make a lot of saves and there’s a team in front of you that will put some quality games together, have a quality schedule and win some games to be above .500.”
That’s something DeMichiel would concur with.
“When you’re 17 or 18 years old, facing the most shots and getting the most repetitions is going to be the best thing for you,” he said. “You do need to win some games and you do need to have that ability to play with a tight game. But I just think if you can switch a mid-tier prep school to a high-tier prep school, you’re going to get some attention.”
Another option is the academies, which have popped up with frequency over the last 10 years. Academies often play between 60 to 70 games per season, allowing for two goalies to get ample time in the net even if it’s an even split.
By contrast, there are fewer games in a prep season and every game matters for playoff seeding. Coaches often ride one goalie due to the importance of winning all the time.
“An academy is a better fit for a goalie unless they know they’re going to play [at a prep school],” Brian Daccord said.
How to approach juniors
There is one stat that Daccord values above all else when predicting future goalie success. It’s not goals-against average, save percentage or even wins.
It’s games played.
“The more games that they’ve played at the time of the draft, the better chance they have of success,” Daccord said.
The reason for that?
“Goaltending is playing connect the dots,” Daccord said. “Goaltending is about the ability to read a play and a release. It’s about the ability to read patterns. The number of times that you read patterns is important. But now think about reading patterns with consequences. Therefore your games played, the amount of shots, the amount of opportunities you have to read patterns will allow you to anticipate better and react quicker because you’ll be able to see the signs of what’s going to happen.”
That comes from playing the most amount of games possible. And when a player is entering their draft year, it means earning the net as much as possible. For some, their draft year comes in prep school. For others, however, it comes in juniors.
An example is Patrick Roy. The fiery, legendary netminder posted GAAs of 6.24 and 4.49 with the Granby Bisons in the QMJHL leading into his draft year. He was drafted in the third round. The game was much different back then, but those numbers still weren’t good.
He made up for it with how many games he played. He played 115 games over those two seasons. In 1984-85, he added 44 more games. He went into Montreal with 159 junior games under his belt.
A more recent example is Carey Price. Price put up dazzling numbers with the Tri-City Americans in the WHL. But his most impressive numbers were his games played. After 28 games in 2003-04, he played in 63, 55, and 46 over the next three years, finishing with 192 games between 2003-07.
“Carey Price, when he retired, was probably 65 years old in goalie years,” Daccord said. “You wonder why was Carey Price so calm? Well, because he’s seen everything 100 times. Wouldn’t you be calm too?”
When a goalie is ready for juniors is similar to when experts opined skaters are ready — once they’ve mastered the previous level.
The same objective for skaters is true for goalies in juniors, too — they need to play.
And the stats aren’t as important as one other thing: survival.
“For goalies, it’s about surviving,” Daccord said. “If you’ve survived junior hockey, you have developed.”
There are so few goalie spots on junior teams, whether it’s the USHL, BCHL, NAHL or NCDC.
“I tell all goalies the same thing,” Daccord said. “You go on to that junior team and you’ve got to understand you’re on two-week renewable contracts. You’re only as good as your last two weeks. There’s so much supply and so little demand.”
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But goalies can take their time. There’s no rush to be a true freshman in college. DeMichiel coached Trey Augustine at Michigan State this past season. After spending 2021-23 with the U.S. National Team Development Program, Augustine entered Michigan State as an 18-year-old, making him the youngest goalie in college hockey.
He was superb, leading Michigan State to a Big Ten Tournament win and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
He is far from the norm.
“He’s in a less than one percent situation,” DeMichiel said. “Most goalies need to come in at 19, 20 years old and that’s totally fine. Goalies just take more time.”
Taking it slow, even with juniors, is part of the process. One option is goalies starting their junior careers in a league like the NAHL.
“Go to the North American [Hockey] League, get your games played in,” Daccord said. “Be successful, drive your self-esteem up. Feel good about your game. Get your commitment and be all set. Be ready and then go to the hardest league in the country [the USHL].”
Junior hockey also isn’t supposed to be easy, especially for goalies.
“[Junior hockey] exposes the warts,” Michaud said. “Then you try to fix those and help them to keep them progressing. That’s what good junior leagues do. If he’s playing in a ‘lower’ junior league and he’s dominating…we want him to go through some tough stuff. That’s really important for these kids to go through that. It’s going to prepare them for our level.”
In the last couple of years, Sam Scopa (Lexington, Mass.) and Thatcher Bernstein (Brookline, Mass.), high-end local goalies, have been through that tough stuff.
They both opted to leave prep early for the USHL. Scopa left after his sophomore year at Belmont Hill, while Bernstein departed Nobles before his senior campaign.
Scopa, a Quinnipiac commit, played 23 games in his first season in the USHL with Cedar Rapids. This season, he played 18 games with the RoughRiders before moving to the BCHL with the Brooks Bandits (formerly of the AJHL). While he posted a 2.88 GAA in 10 games with Brooks, he has yet to have over a .900 save percentage.
Bernstein, a Harvard commit, played 17 games between the Dubuque Fighting Saints and the Tri-City Storm this season. He had a combined 4.00 GAA and a .843 save percentage.
At face value, that doesn’t look great. There are, however, benefits to that route, too.
“I think that if you’re in the USHL and you’re getting some games, but you’re getting a lot of reps in practice every day and there’s a plan for you to be the starter at some point in the future, I think there’s definitely a benefit there,” Beal said.
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Junior hockey is also about survival, as Daccord said. Scopa is 19, while Bernstein is 17. Both have time to adjust to older, stiffer competition. Those two have the benefits of adversity at the highest junior level.
“They’re all going to go through [adversity] at some time or another,” Michaud said. “There’s not a goaltender that’s walking on this planet that hasn’t been through the crud. If you can go through it at a younger age, that helps you to build those experiences. You’re going to go through it in every league every year.
“There are going to be times when you doubt yourself, your abilities and all that. You’ll have gone through it and you’ll know how to work through that stuff.”
