Why the bank shot has defined — and could decide — this year's NHL playoffs (2024)

Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner was caught guessing in the third period of Game 3 of the Western Conference final, and Dallas Stars winger Jason Robertson made him pay.

“I thought he was going to shoot five-hole, so I went down,” Skinner said. “He got me to bite, went around and banked it off me.”

The goal — which stood as the winner in a 5-3 victory for the Stars — might have seemed fluky, but it was no accident. It’s something Robertson works on in practice against netminders Jake Oettinger and Scott Wedgewood with the help of goalie coach Jeff Reese.

“Goalies are too good in this league,” he said Tuesday. “So, if you can try to find something that might work …”

You might as well do it.

That’s something Oilers captain Connor McDavid can relate to.

With the Oilers on a power play in a late November game, Leon Draisaitl won a faceoff to the right of Los Angeles Kings goaltender Cam Talbot. As the puck dribbled back, there was Draisaitl’s running mate McDavid to collect and slide it to defenseman Evan Bouchard.

While Bouchard walked the blue line to the middle of the ice to set things up, McDavid circled and drifted toward the faceoff dots. Within seconds, Bouchard reversed the puck to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who then slid it over to McDavid — now between the bottom of the circle and the goal line.

McDavid was in an area of little concern to the Kings — or, at least, he should have been — so the Oilers captain started pushing his way to Talbot because there was no one close to him. Still, the puck was on the goal line since McDavid shoots left. He didn’t seem to be in a prime area to score.

But with Talbot down protecting the lower half of the net, McDavid saw an opening. He decided to flick an attempt off the side of Talbot’s head. The puck ricocheted into the net. Talbot, McDavid’s friend and former teammate, was left to remove his mask and restring his throat protector.

“I love scoring goals,” said McDavid, the 2022-23 Rocket Richard Trophy winner. “I don’t really care who it’s against.

“Anything different is good — anything different to throw the goalie off — something that he’s not expecting.”

McDavid scoring on Talbot like that earlier this season wasn’t the first time he’s done it, either. Most notably, he pulled off the feat against Arizona Coyotes goaltender Connor Ingram last season.

Bank shots off goaltenders’ backs, bodies, shoulders or heads are more prevalent than ever before.

Case in point, two such goals happened on the same night, April 4, with the Columbus Blue Jackets’ Kirill Marchenko scoring on the New York Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin and the Florida Panthers’ Anton Lundell beating the Ottawa Senators’ Joonas Korpisalo.

“We see them every single night — maybe not the bank shots off the goalie’s body or head, but clearly from really sharp angles,” former longtime NHL goaltender and Sportsnet analyst Kelly Hrudey said.

“Players, they exploit whatever weaknesses there will be in a goaltender — and that happens to be one of them right now.”

It’s high-skilled forwards like McDavid, Draisaitl, Robertson, Jack Hughes, Artemi Panarin, Clayton Keller, Dylan Larkin and Cole Caufield who tend to try it more than others.

“Off the head’s been a pretty popular goal this year,” said Caufield, the Montreal Canadiens winger. “You’re shooting for that and not kind of hoping.”

But it’s not just reserved for snipers. Stars winger Evgenii Dadonov and Vancouver Canucks defenseman Nikita Zadorov highlighted those who’ve found holes high on goaltenders from acute angles in the postseason.

Bill Ranford worked with Talbot this season as the Kings’ director of goaltending. In his playing days, Ranford appeared between the pipes in 647 NHL games from 1985 to 2000 and backstopped the Oilers to their last Stanley Cup in 1990.

Reviewing the goal McDavid scored on Talbot is one of the biggest examples of how different shooters think and act today.

“Back when I played, they’d be willing to try stuff like that every once in a while,” Ranford said. “But now these kids are growing up with it. They’re trying it from peewee on. It’s now become part of the game.”

Hrudey, who calls the maneuver “creative” and “clever,” can pinpoint a couple of reasons why.

“The shooters in the National Hockey League have never been more accurate. That’s not just talking about Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews and (David) Pastrnak and all the top ones you can think of. It’s everybody now even fourth-liners,” he said. “If you give them anything, they’re going to take advantage of it.

“Furthermore, with the technology of the stick, they don’t have to load up on the shot. They can release it a lot quicker with very little tell. They’re able to disguise the shot easier than long ago.”

It’s that element of little tell that makes the bank shot so worthwhile for the attacking player.

“You never know when it’s coming,” Talbot said. “You might think it’s coming and then he hits the guy back door that you’re trying to take away originally.”

This play happens quicker than the other cheeky move near or behind the goal line, the lacrosse goal, dubbed “The Michigan,” because players don’t have to scoop the puck onto their sticks and wrap it around the net. Bank shot attempts simply require seeing an opening in the moment and shooting the puck at it.

That’s what Oilers center Ryan McLeod did when he scored against the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Alex Nedeljkovic on March 3.

“Right when it happens,” McLeod said. “You survey for anything else. If there’s nothing else there, you try to chip one up high.

“There’s a little bit of a hole there between the goalie’s head and the goalie usually knocks the puck towards the net, too, when they’re trying to squeeze (against the post).”

It’s the sliver of room the goalies are giving them that shooters are gravitating toward.

The reason for that is the reverse vertical horizontal, more commonly known as the reverse VH or just RVH. When goalies are in this position, the leg closest to the post is flat along the ice and the pad and body are sealing.

The bottom part of the net is secure, which is valuable when the puck is tight around the net. But that means the top part of the net is visible.

“The reverse VH in that position on the post play looks so fun to play, but it does expose you to bad-angle shots or goals,” Hrudey said. “I don’t see that ever changing — at least, not in the near future. That’s a play that’s going to become more and more dangerous.”

It’s on the goaltender to be taller in the net when attacking players aren’t in a dangerous area, especially when there isn’t an obvious candidate to find with a pass.

“It helps being a bigger guy,” said Washington Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper, who’s listed at 6-foot-5. “I can be down and still up to the crossbar. I try to use my size to my advantage in that situation.

“You’ve got to be sharp, and you can’t let your guard down for a second.”

That’s easier said than done. One sudden slip-up, one wrong read or one incorrect anticipation of a pass to the slot and a goalie can be down and susceptible.

“Every goalie coach is trying to get their clients to play more upright, but it’s very difficult in the moment,” Hrudey said. “We all have tendencies.

“When you get in that moment, you feel as though, if you’re bent over, that you have more explosive power if you have to push to the middle of the ice or post to post.”

Ranford counters that.

“But it’s a four-by-six (foot) net,” he said. “They’ve got to get all the way across and you’re already on the post, so you’ve got a little bit of an advantage there. You have to be aware of Connor McDavid when he’s challenging the goal line that way for that particular shot or fake. From a goalie standpoint, your first responsibility is to seal that upper corner.”

Ranford said stopping this type of attempt is solely on the goaltender. Defensem*n have more important jobs to do.

“We’re taking away the high-percentage plays,” Buffalo Sabres blueliner Rasmus Dahlin said. “You have to give guys credit for scoring goals like that. That’s how it is.”

Coaches around the league agree.

“We can go stick on puck with the D, but mostly it’s for our goalies to make sure that, as a player gets to a bad angle, a puck might be coming high and hard on you,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said.

“That’s an area where you think, ‘That’s not dangerous. They’re going to make a play to the slot.’ So, you’re not worried about it,” Vegas Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “That’s all on the goalie.

“Once (players) have separation back there, I don’t think you want to chase guys into that ice just to prevent that play because then the puck’s going to go right by you and into the slot, which is much more dangerous. It’s incumbent on the goaltenders now to know that’s coming. Their seals have to be that much tighter.”

In other words, one lapse of judgment from a goalie and the puck is in the back of the net.

“There’s a lot of things going on in the goalie’s head that leads to these types of plays,” Hrudey said. “If the player is feeling confident, he’s going to shoot from anywhere because he knows it’s not a bad play.”

McDavid’s favorite time to try it, as he scored on Talbot, is on a power play. He checks to see if goalies are cheating in anticipation of him looking cross-ice to Draisaitl for a one-timer.

“It’s having the threat of Leo on the other side helps a lot,” McDavid said. “I’ve always thrown pucks across there. The goalies started reading it. I was just trying to keep them honest. I’ve done it a couple times, which is great.”

Great for him, maybe. A nightmare for goalies.

Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins has gotten to the point where he’s just tipping his cap to those willing to try it on him.

“It’s a tough read for us because obviously from bad angles, those little holes, like physically we can’t cover them. It’s geometric. You can’t,” he said. “But it’s hard to react and obviously they are good and when you get scored like that you are like thinking, ‘Wow, good job. Good for you.’

“There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not on us even if it’s short side. It’s crazy. That’s why this is the NHL. They’re the best players in the world, so they can do it.”

McDavid hasn’t pulled it off in the playoffs — at least not yet. He attempted it twice in the Vancouver series.

“Every play is different. Every scenario is different,” McDavid said. “It’s your instincts and a little bit of guessing and a little bit of luck, too.”

Talbot thinks back to that McDavid goal early in the season and wishes he’d been more trusting of his penalty killers but gives credit where credit is due. His former teammate got the best of him on that one.

But Talbot also sees the mistake he made.

“I played it wrong,” he said. “I went paddle down thinking there’s a backdoor play. When you go paddle down, it exposes the top third of the net or top quarter of the net. He doesn’t need more than a puck-size hole to put it there.”

Hrudey has long been convinced that this type of goal would decide a playoff game or even a series until goaltenders become more cognizant of getting beat like this.

“We’ll adapt again, and they’ll have to find a new way to bank it in off of us,” Talbot said.

Until then, the trend will continue going the way it has in this year’s playoffs.

It’s the type of goal that makes coaches shake their heads in frustration.

“It’s a great shot, but you expect the goalie to seal that because it’s a bad-angle shot,” Cassidy said.

Then, he added with a laugh, as only a coach would: “To me, they’re all bad goals.”

Maybe that’s a bit harsh. But as a former puck-stopper, Hrudey knows the guy wearing the mask takes the blame.

“In the end, it is preventable,” he said.

Skinner sure felt that way after Monday night, especially because the Oilers couldn’t tie the score and lost the game. He was impatient and gambled wrong.

“I tried my best in the quickness of the situation,” Skinner said. “Robertson was able to make a pretty good play, but that’s something that I’ve got to save.

“Essentially, I want to make him make the first move and just follow him. I know that’s very easy to say. But that’s a challenge for me to get better at.”

(Photo: Leila Devlin / Getty Images)