From The Crease: Dying in the pie

By Jeremy Kaleniecki (guest writer) –

I have moaned about the stunning overuse and misuse of this position. It is called “post leg up,” “VH” or any number of derivatives. Every single night on the NHL highlights I see examples of routine low-percentage chances turn into goals off the initial shot or off of the resultant rebound caused by the lack of square-ness here.
In today’s game there are too many goalie coaches teaching something because it may be trendy but they lack the fundamental understanding of when and how it should be deployed, or more importantly — when it shouldn’t be used.
Goalies today have fallen in love with the back-door save at the expense of front-door coverage. They will plead their case saying things like, “If I don’t do this I will never get to the back door receiver.”
Hogwash.
We need to trust our defense a little more and we need to stop “dying in the pie.”
Basically, “dying in the pie” refers to the pie shaped area poor-angle shots come from — the area from the face of dot down to the goal line. It is this exact type of situation where bad goals are going in at all levels of hockey every night.
These shots should be approached with front-door coverage as your primary objective. That means square up to the shooter and respect the shot 100 percent. If he does try a back-door pass you should, of course, get there if possible. For every one beautiful highlight backdoor save I seem to see five horse-(blank) goals through or under the goalie on poor angle shots.
Please reserve the use of the “post leg up” in only one condition: If you can touch the attacker with your stick, otherwise square up and stay on both your edges.
Anytime you see a goalie use this position where the shooter has this separation they are making a distinct error in application, likely the result of poor coaching.

Jeremy Kalienicki is the USA director for Future Pro goalie school.