Goalie Drill – Rebound Clearing – Hockey Resource

This goalie drill focuses on clearing pucks out of the crease/zone using their stick after a bad rebound or when the puck is near the goaltender. It can also be used to increase the goalie’s endurance, mobility and puck handling skills.

Although this drill is useful for more than just puck clearing, if the goaltender often gives bad rebounds a rebound control drill should be used to solve the root of the problem rather than relying on this drill to teach the goaltender to clear the bad rebounds.

Place pucks near the goaltender’s crease as per diagram below. The goaltender starts in a butterfly position (as if they had just completed a save) they must then get up and skate as fast as possible stopping right in front of the first puck (shooting the puck out of the zone). They then telescopes back to the crease in position, shuffle to be square with the next puck, fall to the butterfly position and repeats the drill for all remaining pucks. (ie. Skate, shoot, telescope back, shuffle, butterfly )

Full Path:

Variations:

• Shoot on the goaltender (low) to make them go into a butterfly before skating to each of the pucks rather than just going into butterfly.
• The goaltender can clear the pucks out of the zone to practice his puck handling skills. Teach the goaltender to use less risky paths or shoot off the boards.
• To practice endurance, the drill should be repeated multiple times in a row without stopping.
• Have a player positioned in the crease area (as if they just shot the puck) which can try and get to the puck before the goaltender (or coming in from the blue line). This will make the goaltender decide if there is enough time to clear the puck or if they should play the shot. Making this sort of decision often only happens during play, being able to recognize speeds and distances and make that decision is good to practice.

Back to list of Goalie drills