By Stevo, AllHabs.net

MONTREAL, QC. – The Pittsburgh Penguins are set to face Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens tonight (Saturday) and star forward Sidney Crosby has already notched seven points in two games since his return. On this occasion, I want to offer my thoughts on how Anders Nilsson failed to recognize the play in front of him when Crosby scored his “comeback” goal.  This raises the issue of the mental aspect of goaltending, and how a goaltender can fall into a trap of letting his mind take over his game.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the video of the Crosby “comeback goal”. Over and over and over again, I watched it, breaking down what happened from the point the Pittsburgh Penguins broke out of their own zone, to the point where Crosby made Nilsson wish he hadn’t gotten the call for that night’s game.

On that November 21^st night and on that play, four things happened that lead to that puck going in the net:

1. Crosby’s back check allowing his team to regain control of the puck.
2. Chris Kunitz’s great acceleration through the neutral zone, causing Andrew MacDonald to get caught looking the wrong way.
3. Nilsson’s inability to properly read the play.
4. Crosby’s awesomeness.

Since I have a tendency to always focus on the goaltending aspect of the game, I’ll further elaborate on what I mean by Nilsson’s inability to properly read the play.

First off, Nilsson is playing too far back into his net on this play. When Crosby crossed the blue line, Nilsson was standing on the edge of the blue paint, and moved back almost to his goal crease line when Crosby put the puck past him. He should have been one to one and a half feet out of his crease with Crosby crossing the blue line, skating backwards at a pace that would have allowed him to face the shot at the edge of his crease, rather than at the goal line.

By being further out to face the shot, he would have cut down the angle reducing the shooter’s ability to see more of the net. But this alone might not have allowed Nilsson to stop the puck, as he made another big mistake on the play, which is a little harder to understand, or maybe not.

Nilsson’s field of vision should have allowed him to see that Crosby was on a path of no return. What I mean by this is that Crosby had beat Andrew MacDonald of the Islanders, but still had no path to cut back to his left, or Nilsson’s right if you prefer. Both MacDonald’s stick, and defenceman Travis Hamonic were blocking his path, leaving Crosby with no other option but to cut to his right. (Or Nilsson’s left if you prefer)

It seems that Nilsson didn’t see things this way. On the play, he reacts in a way that demonstrates he anticipated Crosby would either cut back the other way, or at the very least, bring the puck back to his forehand for the shot. This is why Nilsson’s weight shifted right, leaving a huge open space for Crosby to easily lift the puck past him, causing the crowd to erupt in Pittsburgh.

As I often do, I tried to think back to times where I’d been “badly beat”, and certain examples quickly came to mind, and funny enough, those examples, most of them anyways, have to do with players that were either best on their respective teams, or best in the league at the time.

In most cases, what I can remember is that as a goaltender, you sometimes forget to simply play the play in front of you, and you basically start thinking too much. This may have been the case for Nilsson. Seeing Crosby coming down with speed, he might have overanalyzed the play, thinking Crosby would pull back and shoot like he often does, rather than read the play in front of him, and see that Crosby didn’t quite have the option to do that.

I’ve always thought that great players had this ability to get not only opposing goaltenders but also all opposing players to simply not play their regular game. How often have we seen Sidney Crosby in his short career zip past all five opposing players, leaving them all standing staring at each other, not quite knowing what just happened? Look up his highlight videos, it’s happened quite a few times.

This is the point, that for a goaltender, knowing other player’s shooting tendencies can be a double-edged sword. One would quickly think that knowing that a player often favors shooting the five hole would be an advantage for a goaltender. It could, however, it could cause the goaltender to focus on that, and that alone. The goaltender would then end up in a tunnel-vision-mode where all he’s thinking is to protect that hole down below, and before he knows it, that player’s blown by him and the puck is sitting in the net.

Personally I prefer not knowing opposing players’ tendencies. Like I just stated, it can fog the mind. It is my opinion that as a goaltender, you should treat all players the same, whether it’s Sidney Crosby or Scott Gomez coming at you for the shot.

In one fluid motion, I would scan the player, as he would come at me. The following questions would quickly and instinctively get answered in a fraction of a second: Where are his eyes looking? Where are his shoulders pointing? In which direction are his hips moving? How wide is his stance? Is he holding the puck beside or in front of him? Does he have any passing options? How fast is he moving?

It sounds like a lot, but it really all does happen in a fraction of a second, and then it’s a game of chicken. Although you’ve made a read and are now anticipating a play to happen, you still can’t make the first move. That person coming at you might have just answered all of the previous questions incorrectly, in an effort to fool you into thinking he might do something he won’t. So you back towards your net at a pace that allows you to either make the stop at the edge of your crease or turn and push laterally towards a given a side.

The game for a goaltender is truly mental, it’s no exaggeration when you hear the 80 per cent mental / 20 per cent physical comment. I do believe however, that for a goaltender, you can’t let the mind get over what matters most, simply playing the game, playing the game as we were taught to play it.

Mind over matter? No. What matters over mind.