The 4 Nations Face-Off roster reveals in early December set off alarmists who bemoaned the selection of Team Canada goalies Jordan Binnington, Adin Hill and Sam Montembeault, as well as an alleged puck-stopping paucity stemming from the development system that spawned them.
Had you ingested much of that coverage, you could have been forgiven for believing the Americans, Swedes and Finns boasted the world’s top nine goaltenders while the second comings of Warren Score Against Me and Red Light Racicot were due to cost Canada any chance of tournament success in Montreal and Boston in February. Indeed, the on-air and online hand-wringing seemed surely to precipitate the next Open Ice Summit.
Six weeks later, the Canadian selections had not aged well. Logan Thompson, Darcy Kuemper and Mackenzie Blackwood — all from Canada — were among the National Hockey League leaders in goals against average and save percentage, while Binnington, Hill and Montembeault lagged well behind. That turn of events opened up the Team Canada management to criticism for their 4 Nations choices, perhaps, but it ought to stifle cries for sweeping change.
Firstly, the notion that Canadians’ birthright makes them the best at every position and in every international tournament at every age and skill level, every year is both fanciful and foolhardy given the global popularity of the sport and massive populations of the U.S. and Russia. Secondly, that three other Canadian goalies have risen above the trio chosen for the tournament speaks to the efficacy of a system that produces goalies who get drafted by NHL teams and enjoy success in league play.
Are they the best NHL goalies? Not always. Are they due to join Patrick Roy, Carey Price or Martin Brodeur in the pantheon of Canadian netminding? Perhaps not.
However, Hill won a Stanley Cup with Vegas in 2023 and Binnington did the same with St. Louis in 2019, and in each case the goalies were key players in the championship run. Montembeault, who is almost surely the No. 3 man at 4 Nations, is the youngest of the three and needs time to develop a pedigree.
Regardless, pundits’ tongues were wagging because recent performance and statistics favoured the American trio of Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman. The Swedes lined up next with Filip Gustavsson, Jacob Markstrom and Linus Ullmark, while the Finns ranked closest to the Canadians with Juuse Saros, Ukko-Pekka Luukonen and Kevin Lankinen.
It could be noted that none of the goalies named to those other three teams has won a Stanley Cup, and should be stressed that Canada has enough depth to ice eight quality lines and six sets of defencemen for an event like the 4 Nations. But that apparently wasn’t good enough.
“Canadian fans are just so diehard, so anything that isn’t the top tier — the (Connor) McDavids, the (Sidney) Crosbys, the Carey Prices — anything that isn’t that, isn’t good enough,” said former netminder Jamie Phillips, a 2012 Winnipeg Jets draft pick who spent four years at Michigan Tech, who works as a development co-ordinator with USA Hockey and co-hosts the Goalie Science podcast. “And I guess that’s the right we have as Canadians, because we love hockey and it’s our game and we claim it. But if you look at the World Juniors, where Canada obviously did not play well, what people don’t include in the conversation is that other countries are just getting better.”
This is not a new development. Since 2010, the Americans have won the World Junior tourney six times, Canada five, Finland three and both Sweden and Russia once each. The U.S. holds a 9-8 edge over Canada in the final game of the U18 women’s world championship, which debuted in 2008. Since the inception of the women’s worlds in 1990, Canada has won 13 gold medals, the U.S. 10. At the Olympics, Canada has claimed three of five golds from best-on-best men’s tournaments, while Sweden won in 2006 and the Czechs in 1998. On the women’s side, Canada has won five Olympic gold medals, the U.S. two.
Given those stats, it stands to reason other countries should produce some of the best players in the world, and that logic ought to extend to the goal crease. Since 2008, when Brodeur won the fourth and final Vezina Trophy of his amazing career, the award has gone to Canadians just three times; Price in 2015, Braden Holtby in 2016, and Marc-Andre Fleury in 2021. Americans have claimed it five times, Russians four, Swedes and Finns twice each during that span.
Canada still produces more goalies and more NHL starters than any other nation. At the beginning of January, nine Canadians, seven Americans, six Russians and five Czechs were among the leaders in games played; and of the 90 goalies who had played at least one NHL game at that point, 26 were Canadian, 19 American, 11 Russian, 11 Swedish and nine Finnish.
But the top goalie in the league right now is most assuredly Hellebuyck, and for a long time that place at the top of the charts was reserved for a Canadian puck-stopper.
“We haven’t had a standout stud since Carey Price,” said Phillips. “Because of that, and because of the influx of top-tier goalies right now from Russia, we see that as the system is failing, because we’re not producing these massive studs; the Hellebuycks, the (Andrei) Vasilevskiys, the (Ilya) Sorokins, the (Igor) Shesterkins.
“I do believe Canada has a goalie development problem. However, the system is working exactly as it’s designed to; Canada is producing a large number of NHL goalies, and actually the majority of NHL goalies. Our system isn’t designed in Canada to build from the bottom up. There’s a very small development path, in my opinion a flawed development path, for the top goalies.
“And I do think a lot of it is cyclical. It was (French-Canadian) goalies, Finnish goalies, Western Canadian goalies, Swedish goalies, Russian goalies. OK, so now what’s next? I think it’s a waiting game. I think Canada is going to have a breakout star eventually, and I think everyone is just going to relax.”
Since the inception of the NHL draft in 1963, Canadian goalies chosen each year have been out-numbered by those from another country just five times; in 1987, 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2024. Canada’s dominance by sheer numbers at the position has indeed been eroded — there were an all-time high of 22 Canadian goalies drafted in 1975, 21 in 1993, 20 in 1977, 19 in 1991, 18 in 1974, 1978 and 1995, and 17 in each of 1972, 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2008 — but no more than 11 in any of the drafts since 2009. That seems mostly a function of the game’s growing popularity outside of North America, and the attention the position has been paid in Czechia, Russia, Sweden and Finland.
And that isn’t a new development either. In December 2013, former NHL and Team Canada goalie Corey Hirsch spent a week in Finland and Sweden as a member of an advisory group assembled by Hockey Canada. Their mission was simple; find out how the relatively tiny Nordic nations were suddenly producing so many of the world’s best netminding prospects.
“What we discovered is other countries were catching up, and developing their goaltending,” said Hirsch. “You know, we have so many goalie coaches over here. Everybody’s a coach and everybody’s an expert. And sometimes you get too many cooks in the kitchen and that can be detrimental. Whereas there, it was more streamlined. And I think over here it became a business and some people’s motives always weren’t the greatest. But there are still great people and great goalie coaches in Canada. And some of our best goalie coaches were going over there. I think Francois Allaire went to Sweden years ago, so they’ve been tapping into our resources. In Canada, we always looked at it as trying to grow the game everywhere.”
In Finland and Sweden, where the club team system is responsible for shepherding youth players to national teams and eventually the professional ranks, goalie coaches are attached to every team.
“I know the philosophy in Sweden is, if we build, educate and create more great goaltending coaches, right down to the volunteer level, we will get more engaged and more active goalies and more goalies who want to continue being goalies, while also having the ability to influence that pathway in a more concrete manner,” said Kevin Woodley, who writes on goaltending for NHL.com and InGoal Magazine. “And over there, obviously the club systems are better and with the trickle down from the best to the bottom, it’s really easy to create a coherent approach to it.”
But in Canada, where minor hockey associations like Hockey Alberta are in charge of youth development through U18 AAA, most goalie coaches are private practitioners, and not all elite stream goaltenders have easy access to position-specific coaching.
“I live in Vancouver and there’s 15 different goalie schools, you know,” said two-time Stanley Cup winner Bill Ranford, who was for 17 years a goalie coach with L.A. and is now the Kings’ director of goaltending. “They’re all fighting for the same number of kids, and they all want to impress the parents that they’re better than the next one. So, that’s where I think we have a tough time with it.”
Early and easy access to a goalie coach is certainly influential in a netminder’s development, and if Phillips could change one thing about the system in North America, that would be it, at least in the elite stream.
“I would say every AAA organization across Canada and North America has to have a full-time (paid) goalie development person who is qualified, who meets some standard of experience and coaching, and of knowledge, a full-time person dedicated to developing their goalies in-house. And then there has to be some sort of collaboration among those development coaches in order to succeed. We can still have private coaches, but they need to have someone in-house with a plan to make sure that we’re giving goalies the bare necessity in terms of being able to be a goalie. That will help them long-term.
“In Sweden and Finland, all those goalie coaches meet annually to basically do their State of the Union. And then they’ll bring in experts from all over. They try to figure out what can they improve, what can they change, and what can they adapt from the previous years. We don’t do that at all.”
Increased collaboration is on Matt Weninger’s wish list for the Canadian development system. He’s manager of goalie development for Hockey Alberta, and is also goalie coach for the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League.
“One of the coach mentorship programs we’ve done, the coaches get opportunities to go to a Flames or Oilers game and speak directly to the goalie coaches. And we have five to six WHL goalie coaches on the ice at a time with the goalies.
“When I started coaching 10 years ago, collaboration was something that didn’t exist. Everybody wanted to try to reinvent the wheel. Everybody wanted to try to do it themselves, make money that way. I think what we’re learning, at least in Alberta, and I learned it from Hockey Canada when I started becoming involved there, was just how important it is that coaches collaborate to help goaltenders get better.
“I think what we have at Hockey Alberta in terms of a model for these kids from U11 right through to U18, I hope and wish that every other branch starts to do that. And then I hope at some point we can collaborate more with Hockey Canada on more of a pass-off style model from our branch to Hockey Canada.”
Our system isn’t designed in Canada to build from the bottom up. There’s a very small development path, in my opinion a flawed development path, for the top goalies
Jamie Phillips
Weninger believes Hockey Alberta is doing more for those elite stream goalies now than ever before.
“When I started at Hockey Alberta eight years ago, we didn’t offer any additional opportunities for training, information, knowledge, resources, anything for elite stream goaltenders. We did offer some stuff for the intro level, but nothing on the elite stream. And now we have it set up where you can get the additional training opportunities. There are programs for elite stream goaltenders from the time they hit competitive U11. We have mentorship opportunities, Zoom platforms, resource sharing. We have tailored camps for goaltenders with WHL goalie coaches.”
Hockey Canada has developed the Canadian Goalie Pathway document that provides guidance, skills and drills all the way up. It’s a good piece of work, but obviously must be accompanied by in-person initiatives like camps and conferences, whatever keeps the exchange of information relevant. Woodley isn’t sure Hockey Canada is keeping pace with other national associations on those initiatives. He was asked by USA Hockey to take the Bronze level, Initial Stage Goalie Coaching Certification Program, to get an idea of what they are teaching. He was impressed by the approach, which was first philosophical, as participants discussed the importance of small nets, playing cross-ice games at an early age, try-goalie programming and eradication of the starter/backup scenario at young ages.
“I don’t have the answers on what is right and what is wrong, but they have some opinions, they have some solutions, and they are actively making sure that as many people as possible are educated on those things so that when little Johnny or little Susie goes on the ice, they’re not just standing there at one end of the rink, bored half the time, getting shelled the other half, with nobody helping them, no advice, no coaching. As a matter of fact, for a lot longer than I believe we do here in Canada, they don’t want you to be just a goalie. So again, I just think it feels like there’s a more cohesive, deeper, better, more accessible, better promoted effort at that level.”
The promotion piece is important, to rid the position of its current stigma related to expense and a dearth of coaching.
“We need to start talking about the exciting part of it, not the, ‘Oh god, I don’t want to be the goalie parent, it’s so expensive, it’s so hard, and there’s no one to coach them,’ and all this stuff,” said Woodley. “I don’t know where we’re at, we’re not at that stage yet, but there’s a reason Sweden and USA Hockey have developed quick-change equipment. Because they want more young athletes to try the position to see if they might fall in love with it. And they don’t want one kid in there from six, seven years old getting burned out and having hip problems by 13.”
Ensuring physical safety and mental well-being must be paramount, and most associations do what they can to mitigate costs that are specific to goaltending, but it is most assuredly a limiting factor. A suite of goalie equipment for a U15-player can run to $3,500.
“At the end of the day, I boil it down to cost,” said Hirsch. “There’s so many kids that can’t play hockey anymore, and they’re playing other sports. Some kid might be a great soccer player, somebody who would have been a great goalie, because he can’t (afford to) play.
“I was a kid that didn’t grow up with the means at all. I just didn’t have the money and I was still able to play in the NHL. Now that would never happen. So, what you’ve done is, you’ve actually reduced your pool of athletic talent. So now you have to have money and talent. Before you just had to be athletic and have talent and you could still play. So, the cost of the game is a huge, huge factor.”
If goalie coaching isn’t provided by the association, or if a goalie wants extra one-on-one time to hone his or her skills, private goalie coaches charge as much as $120 per hour.
“It’s the reality with minor hockey that if you want extra, you have to pay for it,” said Weninger. “So, it is a little bit of a user-pay model for some of that stuff. … And again, I know that associations are doing everything that they can. The majority of associations do provide equipment, so they’re doing a lot to try to put kids in net.
“The association can pay for your gear in U9 and U11. And then you get to U13, and if you’re at a competitive level on an elite stream, you’re going to need some specialized gear; a good chest protector, good pants, pads that allow you to play the modern way of the position.”
So, there are challenges all the way up the development ladder, and other countries are working on their own solutions; some with more resources and success than others. USA Hockey, for instance, is determined to have American goalies take 51 per cent of minutes played in the NHL by 2030.
“In my mind this isn’t ‘we’re not doing anything right, we don’t have any goalies, panic time’,” said Woodley, “but the way the mix has changed, the success of other nations, their rise in these rankings and standings, it just would be silly to ignore it and think that if we just keep doing the same thing, it’s not going to keep changing.”
The goaltending story in North America is in fact about to change dramatically. The NCAA in November eliminated a rule that banned a player who had done as little as attend one CHL practice. They had been considered professionals because of the small stipends they received, but now that lucrative Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) payments are flowing to athletes at many NCAA schools in other sports, all is forgiven. The door is wide open to CHL players past and present.
“I do think the new NCAA rule is going to have a major positive impact on Canadian hockey, and goalies specifically,” said Phillips. “The major junior model only benefits kids who are super good at a super young age. We talk about how goalies develop later, and I don’t know the stats, but 27, 28 is kind of when goalies hit their peak. If we expect our goalies to mature later, how can a system thrive when it forces kids into being NHL ready when they’re 21, 22? Now, instead of having to be forced into pro, they can go play an additional four years of NCAA, and now they’re stepping into the pros at 24 to 26 years old. That’s going to create much more development, and I think we’re going to see a lot of players who would have gone to play in the NHL, down to the East Coast, fizzled out, bounced around, retired by 25-26, those players are going to know that they’re not ready to go pro and they’re just going to go NCAA.
“They’re going to have a great time. They’re going to tear it up. They’re going to develop as young men, develop physically, and develop their game, and then they’re going to step into pro. So, pro is going to get older, and it’s just going to benefit goalies long-term. I think it’s a good thing for goalies overall, specifically Canadian goalies, because growing up we were told that major junior is the only way; the fastest way to pro is what they would tell us whenever they did their sales pitch. But now it doesn’t matter. If you’re ready, perfect. If you’re not ready, don’t sweat it. Go play your next best hockey.”
Ranford said the CHL pathway has long put home-grown kids at a disadvantage vis a vis their European brethren because of those time pressures and a discrepancy in competition level.
“The system is somewhat broken for Canadian goaltenders. You have kids who come out of the CHL, usually at 19 or 20 years old, and then by the time they come out of their (NHL entry level contract), they’re anywhere from 22 to 23. You have the kids who come over from Europe who, once they turn 18, are playing with men already. So they play with men at 18, 19, 20. They come over to the NHL at 22, 23. Now, they’re coming out of their entry level at anywhere from, say, 23 to 26.
“Big difference.”
How big?
“You can play in the SEL when you’re 16,” said Phillips. “And you’re playing against former NHL players. You can’t say those goalies don’t have a massive advantage in development. If you’re 16-years-old and you’re spending every day with players who are basically NHL calibre, you’re going to be ready to step into the NHL after X amount of years at that level. Whereas it’s hard to expect a 19-year-old (Canadian), when the oldest player he’s ever played against is 21 years old, to step in, and the 21-year-olds are not the best 21-year-olds, they’re the ones who are probably going to go play U SPORTS. And you expect them to step into the NHL and all of a sudden just magically be good. Well, no, there’s going to be some time to develop.”
Ranford is very interested in how the next decade of development plays out in North America, because the playing field looks to be evening up.
“Now, if you allowed our Canadian goalies to develop for another three years in the American Hockey League or at the NHL level, and now they’re on par with the kids coming over (from Europe) after three to six years of playing with men, then you’ll start to see Canadian goalies develop. The problem is we’re having to make decisions on these kids who are anywhere from 18 to 23 years old. And in hindsight, it’s not really fair. I don’t know if fair is the right word.
“But that is now going to change, and I would like to see where things are at in 10 years’ time because you’re going to see, and it’s already started to happen, our CHL goalies are (committing) to colleges.”
According to Neutral Zone, a website that tracks college commitments, there are eight goalies among the 77 CHL players who have already agreed to play for NCAA schools starting with the 2025-26 season or later. The window of opportunity to turn themselves into pro prospects will be open longer.
“That’s going to be a good thing and we’ll probably get more Canadian goaltenders who last longer and get more opportunities at pro as a result of it,” said Woodley. “But it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a problem. These kids had these tiny little windows to fail or succeed and now they’re going to be extended artificially. I mean in theory you could have a full four (years). Now you’re talking about a 22, 23-year-old athlete instead of a 19-year-old.”
Goalies will still be drafted at 18, but NHL teams can now exercise the kind of patience they often show first-round picks, most of whom are not goalies.
“Now as an organization, you will potentially have drafted a goalie that just doesn’t quite mature quickly enough, and you’re able to take another one to two years or three years of them at the college level,” continued Ranford. “Now you have an opportunity where you don’t have to sign them to an entry-level contract until they’re in their early 20s. And here’s the other thing. If you’re an NHL team and you’re drafting what I call a flyer, where you’re drafting somebody late in the sixth or seventh round, and you’re just hoping that they’re going to be a Glenn Anderson and develop into a superstar, you’re more apt to take somebody that’s going to go to college because you don’t have to make a decision on them for three or four years.”
The business bent of CHL teams does not afford them nearly as much patience. Owners, managers and coaches make decisions predicated on the need to win now.
We need to start talking about the exciting part of it, not the, ‘Oh god, I don’t want to be the goalie parent, it’s so expensive, it’s so hard, and there’s no one to coach them’
Kevin Woodley
“And I recognize that it is difficult for the CHL,” said Woodley. “But I watch kids rot on the bench as 17-year-olds — barely play, get thrown into tough spots, and then, OK, it’s your opportunity at 18 and you better be good or you’ll probably play half the games at best. And then maybe you get a chance to start at 19. And then you’re 20 years old and it’s like, we’ve only got three (over-age) spots so we definitely don’t want to spend one on the goaltender. See you later.
“I get it. You’ve got to win. The CHL is a competitive, not a development league, so the kids are not there to be developed, they’re there to win. And if they don’t, their development suffers, and those are really important ages to have kids barely playing hockey as goaltenders. It hurts a lot of them, and these are kids that were drafted because they were supposed to be amongst the top echelon of Canadian goaltenders.”
The minor hockey system, the junior hockey route and the NCAA path all have their pros and cons, their successes and failures. Through several decades, Canada has produced some of the legends of the goaltending game, and there will surely be more to come. If that doesn’t happen fast enough for some observers, so be it.
“I’m not dismissing the people who say it’s just part of the cycle that we don’t have that next guy,” said Woodley. “I just think it would be really ignorant to ignore the fact that the other countries are doing a lot more to make sure they have that other guy. And we really haven’t, to the best of my knowledge, done nearly enough to keep up with those efforts.
“It’s not about turning out the next Carey Price, it’s about making sure a whole bunch of kids want to play the position, and get all the resources to continue to develop at the right age in the right elements so more of them have a chance to turn into Carey Price.”