Tracking Behind the Net: Problems, Solutions, and a Drill for the Goalie's Blind Spot

Edited together, these three clips illustrate one of the trickiest parts of a goaltender's game: tracking the play as it moves behind the net.
The first part is an unusually poor piece of instruction from Alexander Goaltending (MRJALEX). While their approach to coaching is generally pretty sound, here they've managed to maximize the goalie's blind-spot by misdirecting the 'head-switch': the moment when the goalie switches from looking over one shoulder, back through the net at the puck, to looking over the other shoulder.
The second is an example of strong work from one of Vladislav Tretiak's students at a camp in Latvia, in which a dangerous player behind the net with passing options in the low slot is dominated by a well-trained goalie.
The third clip is a fairly low--intensity version of a drill we use regularly at the GBHA: turning a net to face the boards, the shooter attempts to put the puck in the goalie's blind-spot, then wraps or jams it around the posts, or uses the dasher on the boards to simulate a hard tap-in of a centering pass to the low slot. Notice that the goalie starts out strongly, managing his head-switch well, but soon tires and begins to expose his blind-spot.

[@uegoaltending]

I have started to use a modified system of the traditional method as detailed in Jim Park's THE PUCK STOPS HERE vid #2 where the goalie only turns their head when they have sealed there stick-side post. I have modified it for my elite goalies where I only want them turning their head when they are positioned on one of either two posts.
Younger goalies, I still prefer the traditional method so their butt-end doesn't get stuck in the net when tracking from glove side to stick side.

[@BeauNero666]

Great break down of behind the net plays, I face those way too often. Just wish I could read the commentary bubbles before they vanish! I tried so many times to pause and read them but it seems to pause on them, thus when I pause it it plays right off and I can not read them!!

[@uegoaltending]

I have experienced the same difficulty when working with goalies that have been trained in the Quebec school.

[@GBHAgoalies]

Hi Jean, sorry about that: CZcams has been messing around with annotations and hosing the 'pause' feature. It seems that now most of my commentaries are wrecked thanks to this genius move. In other news, Gmail will shortly begin to delete random sections of your email messages, and Facebook will prevent you from contacting anyone whose name contains an 'e'.