Anaheim Ducks Hockey 201: The Goalie’s Butterfly Technique
Pucks of a Feather continues our new series, Hockey 201. We want our Anaheim Ducks fans to know the ins and outs of the game on a more advanced level. Today, Jacob Robles breaks down the Butterfly Technique goalies use.
This season at Pucks of A Feather, we’re taking an in-depth look at a variety of different aspects of hockey through our series Hockey 201. Today I’m going to cover the butterfly style/ technique that been the norm in the goaltending world for going on three decades.
For starters, the basis of the butterfly style is fairly simple. The whole point of the butterfly is to drop both knees down to the ice to wall out the bottom portions of the net when a shot is incoming. Its pretty much the basis and starting point of making any and all saves with your pads.
Personally, I don’t consider the butterfly as a style. It’s more of an action that is part of a goalie’s wide arsenal of moves. Pretty much all goalies at any level, nowadays, are taught a hybrid style, primarily focused on the butterfly.
Thanks to Patrick Roy‘s dominance throughout his illustrious career, he was considered one of the best goalies to utilize the technique, even though it was used decades before St. Patrick was around. Greats like Terry Sawchuk and Jacques Plante used it way before masks were commonplace in the NHL, but warned against it as the unpredictability of shots were too much of risk for them.
Harder than it Looks
So dropping on your knees sounds easy enough, right? Yes and no. While the movement in itself requires little to no effort when your body is used to it, there are a wide variety of variables that have to be considered before committing to dropping down to make a save attempt.
The butterfly is best utilized in these two ways: First, it’s used as a move for easy saves that a goalie has no trouble with, such as shots directly coming at you. Second, goalies use it as a transition move when reacting plays in front of the crease. The worst thing a goalie can do is overcommit and drop early before a shot.
I struggle with overcommitting often because I’m not very good with my lateral movements, so I try to get my body in front of everything on the initial attempt, instead of shifting my body and moving across the crease. Doing this can leave a netminder way out of position and leads to a lot of goals. This is where awareness and ability to multitask at lightning fast speeds really comes in handy.
Goalies don’t always face shots they can just swallow up in the chest area or catch in the glove. The butterfly is used on the fly. Sometimes, just dropping down is the only option. Sometimes a shot gets kicked out and the rebound goes right to a player, forcing the goalie to react by moving laterally.
Hockey is wildly unpredictable and truly a game of inches. I always thought that saying was dumb but it took getting lit up at pickup games to understand that if I literally was over an inch more to my right or left, I wouldn’t be fishing a puck out of my net. But I digress.
Example
Before I close this out, I wanted to provide an example of what I’ve been talking about. This clip is from the 2017 playoff series against Calgary where John Gibson made an amazing pad stop on Johnny Gaudreau in the final seconds of Game 1.
More from Pucks of a Feather
- Who could the Anaheim Ducks consider presenting offer sheets to?
- Is Pierre-Luc Dubois on the cards for the rebuilding Anaheim Ducks?
- Making the case for the Anaheim Ducks to trade with the Edmonton Oilers
- Anaheim Ducks might benefit tremendously by trading John Gibson
- How close are the Anaheim Ducks to becoming contenders again?
The clip begins with Matthew Tkachuk coming in the Anaheim zone and firing a shot at Gibson covering his blocker side post. Tkachuk’s shot hits Gibson’s glove and pops out, giving Johnny Gaudreau an opportunity to stuff one in far side.
Gibson is able to get his pad extended out enough to cover up the puck as both Calgary and Anaheim players alike pile up in the net.
While not a crazy pad-save, by any means, it goes to show how an innocent shot on goal can really cause some chaos in the crease. Gibby was in a good position facing the shot and effectively demonstrates that even while he was down, he still was able to get his leg out to make the save at a seconds notice.
I’ve always really enjoyed this clip because Gibson makes it look so easy. Again, while it’s not anything jaw-dropping, it just shows how beneficial being positioned correctly can make your job that much easier in a wild game.
Next. Top 5 Ducks goalies of all-time. dark
Overall, the butterfly is one of the movements that become second nature to a goalie after consistent practice. It’s a fairly simple move to execute but, like I said throughout this article, its mainly used for transitioning. There’s much more that goes into making effective saves while down in the butterfly position that I will hope to cover another time. Hope you have enjoyed!