Puck-handling skills important weapon for goalies

The Coaches Room is a weekly column by one of four former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Jim Corsi, David Marcoux, Paul MacLean and Joe Mullen will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, Marcoux, former goalie coach for the Carolina Hurricanes and the Calgary Flames, looks at puck-handling goaltenders and how they can impact a game.
A Stanley Cup isn't won with the puck-handling skills of a goaltender, but it can be lost because of a goaltender's puck-handling skills.

The right plays, and the best plays, sometimes go unnoticed, but the wrong plays and the blooper-reel mistakes often live in infamy.
The ability of a goalie to play the puck can help a good team become elite as he can help with the transition game and keep his defenseman for suffering added duress. On the other side, poor handling of the puck can lead to more time spent in the defensive zone for his team, or, ultimately, goals-against.
Recently, we've seen two of the best puck-handling goalies; the two Martys -- Brodeur and Turco, each known for his excellent passing ability.
In New Jersey from 1992 to 2014, Brodeur was such a strong passer. He relied mostly on his forehand to either move the puck to a teammate or clear a puck up and out of the zone to help the penalty kill. New Jersey won three Stanley Cup was a perennial power throughout his time there. He retired with the St. Louis Blues in 2015.
Turco, who played with the Dallas Stars from 2000 to 2011 before short stints with the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins, rewrote the rules as far as what goalies could do with the puck.
He basically invented the inverted-glove position to increase options when it came to passing the puck. He also incorporated Mohawk turns into his strong skating foundation, which allowed him to attract a forechecker and quickly spin around for an accurate outlet pass.

What's a Mohawk turn?
It's an element of deception from power-skating drills where Turco pivoted rapidly on a forechecker to protect the puck with his body.
Today, the NHL game stresses speed and forechecking to create turnovers and scoring chances. It is the responsibility of a goaltender to protect his defensemen, either through communicating options or handling pucks themselves.
Strong puck-handling goalies can nullify the ability to forecheck, create turnovers and generate offense by the opposition. By stopping rimmed pucks, reading the play and, most importantly, creating deception in their passing plays, goalies can contribute to puck possession and decreased defensive-zone play.
However, poor puck-handling goalies can turn passing plays into an adventure and sometimes cost the team goals.
Turco's influence was wide.
He impacted opponents and their coaches, who studied his methods.
The inverted-glove grip of his stick allowed Turco to move the puck on his backhand and the forehand, creating deception. Previously, goalies mainly used their forehand to distribute the puck.

Other NHL goalies quickly realized the value of this technique. It is commonplace throughout the pro and amateur levels.
Turco's influence continues in the NHL. Calgary Flames goalie Mike Smith, Turco's backup with the Stars in Dallas from 2006-08, developed his puck-handling acumen by watching and working with Turco.
Now, he is among the best puck-moving goalies around.
Ask Calgary defensemen Mark Giordano or T.J. Brodie if they appreciate Smith's passing abilities. Without a doubt, they will tell you that Smith allows them to spend less time going back for pucks and keeps them safer from body checks while they retrieve pucks deep in the zone.
During my stints with Carolina and Calgary, part of my pre-scouting responsibilities included dissecting the puck-handling skill of the opposing goalie. When we played Smith, the key point to our players was to chip pucks in softly behind the defenseman or shoot it high and hard along the glass. Each option negated, to a degree, Smith's ability to influence the game with his puck-handling skills.
Smith is known for, what I call, his "200-dollar passes," those of higher risk but also higher reward, often going well up the ice and trying to bypass forecheckers.
Most goalies are more comfortable with the "10-dollar pass," taking less risk by pivoting to protect the puck, faking to one side and simply passing to the other defenseman.
Some goaltenders aren't comfortable at all handling the puck. However, any goalie can improve with practice and teaching.

When Miikka Kiprusoff joined our team in Calgary from San Jose in 2003, he had many high-end skills but puck-handling was not his forte. He lacked confidence.
We created some simple key words for him and our team so they could communicate their intentions or advice during play; "over," "back side," "leave it," and "rim." We also specified some areas where our players, mostly the defensemen, needed to be for Kiprusoff to make successful passes and gain confidence.
We also did postgame video sessions and that helped him realize how much time he had in these situations and how if his defensemen went quickly to each corner, he had multiple options for forehand or backhand passes.
Kiprusoff learned to trust his pass options through practice and communication. With the inverted-glove technique, he could hit the left defenseman or left wing on the tape or fake the forehand and hit the right defenseman with a direct pass. He also became proficient at simply chipping the puck high to the glass to hit our right wing with an indirect pass.
The work by so many was gratifying and Kiprusoff's improvement paid dividends for the team on many nights.
Another goalie I worked with is Cam Ward in Carolina. He reads plays and forechecks like few others and he truly understands the art of deception by looking at a pass option but choosing another.
Though our eyes are drawn to dazzling, impressive goals and saves, these examples illustrate that sometimes the simple and unappreciated can have just as big an impact on the outcome of a game.