You gotta want it, right? That’s what they always say, “they” being the NHL players who dare tread into the lawless border between slot and crease, the coaches who send them there, and the fans in the 300-level relentlessly calling for blood.
It’s about desire. It’s about a willingness to take the punishment, and an eagerness to dole it out. It’s about fearlessness and an almost wanton disregard for life and limb. That’s where the pain is, yes — the cross-checks to the back of the head, the slashes to the ankles, the elbows to the gut — but that’s also where the goals are. They’re called the scoring areas for a reason. They’re called the dirty areas for a reason, too. Pay the price, reap the reward. A red light is worth a black-and-blue every single time.
Easy to say that, of course. A tad more difficult in practice. Ever turn your back on an angry giant with a weapon in his hand? Ever step in front of a frozen projectile traveling at triple digits?
Ever do both at the same time?
“It’s scary at first,” Nashville Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “When you had Zdeno Chara behind you and Shea Weber shooting it at you — that’s the best of both worlds right there.”
Yes, it takes guts to work the net front in the NHL. But it’s facile, folly even, to say it’s simply about who wants it most. There’s a true art to working the net front — for the forwards trying to create havoc, the defensemen trying to prevent havoc, and the goaltenders trying to see through the havoc. It requires courage, sure. But it also requires precision timing, exquisite hand-eye coordination, uncanny instincts, physical fortitude and quick thinking.
And yes, a bit of a nasty attitude doesn’t hurt. Hey, gotta want it, right?
“It’s always chaos,” Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar said. “But you’ve just got to try and make it a little bit of controlled chaos.”
The defensemen
Let’s start not with the trespassers but those patrolling the fence line.
For defensemen protecting the crease, it’s much more complicated than simply outmuscling an intruding forward — though that’s certainly part of it. It starts with picking your battles. Or more accurately, when to battle.
Just because a forward is in front of the crease doesn’t mean it’s time to start jockeying for position. As a defenseman, you have to conserve energy for when you truly need it. So if the puck is wedged between a slew of skates and sticks in the corner, you merely keep an eye, not your whole body, on that forward lurking in the goal mouth. Otherwise, you’ll tire yourself out before the real fight begins.
Former Chicago Blackhawks coach and 21-year NHL defenseman Luke Richardson made a point of having his blueliners — particularly his smaller, more offensive-minded ones — watch video of Toby Enstrom and Kimmo Timonen, a pair of 5-foot-10 guys who protected the crease from power forwards who outweighed them by 20, 30, 40 pounds while conserving enough energy to exit the zone and maintain possession once they did, rather than just dumping the puck and going for a line change. Enstrom and Timonen would use their stick as a spacer more than a weapon. Or they’d stick their arms out and stiffen them, forcing forwards to go around them, making them expend just a little more energy and just a little more time before getting themselves planted. Every fraction of a second counts when forwards are looking for drive-by tips and screens.
Now, once the puck skitters free, or you sense that a shot is coming, it’s time to start boxing out.
But wait a second, dumb question — how do you box someone out on slippery ice?
“It’s turning your skates,” Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy said. “You can actually dig in more than you can in shoes because of your edges, if you turn them outwards. So you plant your feet sideways — duck-footed, or whatever it’s called — and you can be tough to move. Sometimes, if a guy’s coming at you from the side, you just kind of lean into them and wait for the right time to push off of him to get the rebound. It’s all just feel and strength, really.”
Five-foot-10 Kimmo Timonen (44) made a living boxing out much larger players, such as 6-3 Patrick Maroon (62). (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
Getting there first is key, too. Better to be the guy trying to stand still than the guy trying to move the guy trying to stand still. Anticipate the play, get into position, jam those skates into the ice, get a strong and wide base and dare the other guy to dislodge you.
This, of course, is where the nastiness begins — jockeying for position can mean a light shove or it can mean a full-on two-hander to the spine. Back in Richardson’s time, it got truly violent among that amorphous mass of bodies. How violent?
“As violent as I was allowed to be,” Richardson said. “(But) you would be careful who you’re up against. I might not have been as violent against Bob Probert as I was against a smaller guy that wasn’t as tough.”
It went far beyond the usual two-handed shoves in the back that you still see today.
The can-opener — wedging your stick between the forward’s legs and either dumping them to the ice or maneuvering them around like a marionette — was popular in Richardson’s time. And good luck to the knees and ankles of any forward in the 1980s who got close enough to a Ron Hextall or a Billy Smith, who’d take their big goalie paddles and chop a forward down like a lumberjack.
That stuff is all verboten today. These days, even especially aggressive cross-checks will get you two minutes. With rising slap shots screaming toward the goal mouth, a poorly timed — or well-timed, depending on how old-school you are — cross-check can put a player’s face right into the line of fire. For obvious reasons, the league doesn’t like that.
“The game has changed,” Vegas center Tomáš Hertl said. “Hockey got a lot smaller, guys got a little faster. I got into the league when it was still Chara and Weber. It was different — there were big, strong guys and they could break their stick over your back. It’s changed, but it’s still not easy in there. The next morning, you still feel it.”
Modern defensemen have to find subtler ways to hinder a forward’s ability to tip a point shot, redirect a slap pass or pounce on a rebound. A quick stick is critical. Most intentional deflections happen on the ice, so Murphy said he’s usually trying to get his stick underneath the forward’s stick and lift it off the ice. On the flip side, when a forward intentionally raises his stick as a shot is on its way, the defenseman’s instinct is to whack it down back to the ice with his own stick or use his body to angle the player away from the net. Whatever the forward’s trying to do, don’t let him do it.
Of course, the more bodies in that net-front battle, the harder it is for a referee to see what’s really going on in there.
“I wouldn’t say it’s like free game in there,” Makar said. “But you’re still going to do anything to keep the puck out of your net. If that means grabbing a guy’s stick or something, you try to do that.”
There is another option — leave the scrum entirely and try to step in front of the shot yourself. That involves unspoken communication with a defensive partner and a trust level with the goaltender. Some goalies love it when a defenseman sacrifices his body for a blocked shot. Other goalies want a clear line of sight to the puck and would prefer to handle it themselves.
So, get there first. But monitor the puck closely so you don’t waste energy. Make sure you and your defensive partner know which forward is his and which one’s yours. Then, decide if you want to fight for position or block a shot. And if you choose to fight, determine whether the forward is going for a deflection — and what type — or if he’s looking to roll off and pick up some loose change around the net. And don’t get a penalty, but be sure to get away with whatever you can.
Oh, and process and accomplish all that in a second or two. Maybe three.
“It’s instinct,” Murphy said.
“It’s fun,” Makar said.
The forwards
Washington’s Tom Wilson can’t exactly articulate what it is that makes him effective in front of the net. It all happens too fast, too chaotically, to distill into an easily digestible soundbite that accurately conveys the experience to a layperson.
“A lot happens really quickly — we’re talking tenths of a second, pucks flying,” said Wilson, a quintessential example of what seems to be a dying breed in the NHL — the power forward. “It’s a hectic game. A lot of the best players around the league are able to slow it down and make plays.”
He was talking about extraordinary tippers like Joe Pavelski and Chris Kreider. Or quick-twitch rebound guys such as Anders Lee and Sean Monahan. Or guys with an innate ability to plant themselves in just the right spot along the blue paint for redirects and tap-ins, such as Zach Hyman and Tyler Bertuzzi.
But in the anarchic area in front of the net, sometimes skill is overrated. Being an agent of chaos can be just as effective. Maybe not like Sean Avery turning his back on the play and waving his arms in front of Martin Brodeur like a basketball player guarding an inbound pass, but, well, not not like that, either.
“There are times where maybe it’s part of my job to make it a little bit crazy,” Wilson said. “I try to thrive in that environment. That’s hockey.”
This is what players mean when they say they want to “take the goalie’s eyes away.” It’s bodies in the way, it’s arms and sticks flailing, it’s planting yourself a millimeter outside the blue paint, your backside taking up as much of the goalie’s field of vision as possible.
“Goalies are so good now, so you need to do that,” Forsberg said. “You need to find any advantage, even if it’s just causing some kind of distraction.”
As for the rest of it, it’s a lot of the same things and thoughts defensemen are working through — just in reverse. Navigate the towering trees, avoid getting mauled, keep your stick on the ice, and get in the way as much as possible. For big guys like Wilson, who is 6-4, 220 pounds, it’s often about brute strength. For smaller forwards, it’s about using your lack of size to your advantage — whether that means using your lower center of gravity to knock bigger defensemen off balance or squeezing through tight spaces and finding open ice.
Utah’s Clayton Keller used to be hesitant to get too involved in the goal mouth. But once he started scoring goals from there, it got a lot less intimidating.
“For a guy like me, a smaller guy, I try to spin off guys, and that’s when you get the rebound, or sometimes you get the tips,” Keller said. “But for a smaller guy, it’s mostly about arriving at the right time and not always standing there. Being around it and getting used to it is the most important thing. That’s where a lot of the goals are scored.”
Veterans such as Corey Perry can dig into their deep bag of tricks in front of opposing goalies. (Jason Mowry / Getty Images)
Savvy forwards can take advantage of the clutter and get away with bending the rules, too. Richardson pointed to a game last February in which Edmonton’s Corey Perry flat-out slashed the stick out of the hands of Anaheim goalie John Gibson, leading directly to an Evander Kane goal. The rules can be very different for a young guy versus a crafty veteran.
“Some guys get away with things because they’ve been around a long time, and they have relationships with the referees that the young guys don’t have,” Richardson said. “You’ve got to play that card, too. If you’re a younger guy trying to earn your stripes, play fair and don’t bark at the referee.”
When Alex DeBrincat first broke into the league, he was regularly getting into physical battles in front of the net, often leading to full-blown scraps after the whistle. Despite being 5-8, tied for the shortest player in the league, DeBrincat too often went toe-to-toe with some of the league’s biggest, strongest players.
He’s a little wiser now at 27 years old.
“I was a little bit more frisky earlier in my career,” he said. “But it’s just playing hockey. I’ve done it for so long, it’s just kind of second nature. I’m not always right in front of the net, but when I am, I’m just trying to get an edge on the other guy and trying not to get pushed out of the net. Sometimes I get a little angry, but usually I’m trying to stay out of the box. I like scoring goals better than fighting.”
The goaltenders
The Boston Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman is 6-3, 195 pounds. By most standards, he’s pretty big. By modern hockey goalie standards, he’s average at best.
“I’m still growing, trust me,” he said. “We’ll get there one day.”
There are 240 forwards and defensemen who have played in the NHL this season who are 6-3 or taller. And very often, several of them are standing directly in front of him while the puck is moving along the blue line. So eight years after arriving at the University of Maine as a scrawny, somewhat short goalie, he’s still trying to see over people’s heads so he can do his job.
“As a freshman, I had to find ways to find and track that puck because these defensemen and forwards were so good at tipping pucks, so good at sifting pucks through,” Swayman said. “And obviously, the forwards in front of me are using their bodies to take away the goalie’s eyes. So I still love bobbing and weaving. I’m probably a little more physical than most goalies, too, making sure I see the puck. Because at the end of the day, I don’t care how it’s done, I just want to see the puck.”
At 6-4, Detroit Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot tries to peer over the scrum, too. The New York Rangers’ Jonathan Quick is one of the few remaining goalies who likes to get low, coiling his body in the crease like a snake and peering through everybody’s legs. Whatever line of sight you prefer, being able to track the puck through all the traffic might be the most important skill a goalie can have.
And if that traffic backs into you a few times each possession, so be it.
“That’s what you sign up for, right?” Talbot said. “It’s their job to make it as hard on us as possible, and it’s the D’s job to help us out as much as they can.”
Goalies such as Cam Talbot rely on their defensemen as much as their defensemen rely on them. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
You’d think communication between goalie and defenseman would be key, but it’s more of a luxury, really. The action’s happening too fast to truly divvy up responsibilities on the fly. There’s usually not even time for trash talk between opponents; that has to wait for the inevitable post-whistle skirmish. Talbot is more vocal than most, though, and has no trouble yelling at his teammates to get out of his way.
“They’re pretty good about it,” Talbot said. “And sometimes they come back and tap me on the pads and say, ‘Good, I didn’t want to eat that one, happy to let you take it.’”
Just as video review has made most forward-initiated contact with the goalie a thing of the past, those Hextall stick swipes have mostly disappeared, too. But if the swarm of bodies in front of the net seeps into the crease, it’s not uncommon to see a goalie take matters into his own hands and start shoving people out of his way.
And sometimes it’s not just the opponents.
“I’m color blind, so sometimes my own guys get in the mix,” Swayman said with a laugh. “Like I said, I don’t care how I get it done, I just want to make sure I see the puck.”
Shoves from behind. Shoves from ahead. Cross-checks to the back of the neck, butt-ends of sticks in the ribs, stick blades in the skates, gloves in the face. All while that hard chunk of rubber could be rocketing in — throat-high or knee-high or toe-high — at any moment.
No, it’s not glamorous at the net front. But when you do it right — whether it’s scoring a goal or stopping one — it’s totally worth it.
“It’s great in there,” Forsberg said. “OK, yeah, it’s awful sometimes. But when you get rewarded, there’s nothing better. Those are the best goals you can score. You earned those.”
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; Photos: Maddie Meyer, Ethan Miller, Scott Taetsch, David Berding / Getty Images)
