The Two Pad Stack Returns
by Darren Hersh
In a brilliant article found in USA Hockey Magazine, Mitch Korn outlined how the NHL's recent rule changes will again change the way goalies must face their opposition. In the article, he points out how the more enforced interference rule makes the game more wide open so that goalies will need to "scramble" more. It is here that he mentions the increased use of the two-pads stack as an effective maneuver, "Goalies must be able to recover faster and scramble better — Not all rebounds can be prevented, and tic-tac-toe plays are up, so goalies must be able to scramble and battle for pucks around the net. Under the old rules, we rarely saw a goalie stack his pads. This season I have seen dozens of stacks," writes Korn.
It is true that NHL goalies are stacking much more. Case in point is that the author of this article saw nearly every goalie in the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs utilize the stack at one time or another. Goalies such as Marty Turco and Martin Brodeur used it quite often and even Stanley Cup Playoff Champion and MVP, Cam Ward, pulled out the stack a number of times.
Effects in Developmental Leagues
While the NHL has changed a lot, college hockey really hasn't changed all that much. College and youth level games has always been more wide open than other development leagues as they have never had the two-line pass and clutching, grabbing, and stick work has always been much less than Major Junior and NHL play. Thus, while NHL goalies have and will need to continue to modify their play to keep up with the changes, youth and college goalies always should have had two-pad stacks in their repertoire of save tools. Goalie coaches should have always taught youth goalies the stack, but unfortunately for many years, goalies have been taught an almost pure butterfly style of play at some camps, when their game did not at all resemble that of the NHL. Now that the NHL game resembles more the college and youth game, I hope goalie coaches will again see the usefulness of the stack maneuver in soem situations and will again start to provide goalies with a more well rounded skill set that includes the stack.
As Korn points out in his articel, all levels of hockey, including youth hockey, will see a large increase in penalties this coming 2006-2007 season (Junior hockey surely has increased penalties, which some of us never thought would have been possible). So goalies will have to be prepared for many 5 on 4, 5 on 3, and 4 on 3 situations this year, which will undoubtedly lead to more desperate situations around the net and therefore more opportunities to utilize the two-pad stack. Two pads are certainly better than one and your pads should be far bigger than your head, so diving is out.
The bottom line is that the stack is back, but I say, at least for youth hockey and for college hockey, which have always had a more open game than the NHL, it should never have left!!
For more about when the move should be utilized and how to perform the stack, go to our other Goalie Academy article on stacks.