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Inside the NHL
Posted: Tuesday February 08, 2000 02:15 PM As the injury to Trent McCleary proved, blocking shots is dangerous By Kostya Kennedy
The science of shot blocking is not a science at all, but an imprecise art that requires good instinct and technique and flat-out fearlessness on the part of its practitioners. Canadiens forward Trent McCleary nearly died in a game against the Flyers on Jan. 29 after he went down to block a slap shot, was struck in the throat by the puck and suffered a fractured larynx. The incident scared other NHL players, though not enough to persuade them to stop blocking shots. "When I saw what happened to him, it freaked me out," says Leafs defenseman Dimitri Yushkevich, "but you're still going to block shots. You see car crashes every day, yet people still drive cars."
The preferred way to block a shot is to stay on one's skates and stand between the shooter and the net. Former defenseman Craig Ludwig, one of the top shot blockers of the 1980s and '90s, wore extra-wide shin pads to make that method more effective. If required to leave their feet, many players will go down on only one knee so they can quickly spring back into the play. Falling into a horizontal position to block a shot, as McCleary did, is most commonly done in a desperate attempt to defuse a two-on-one. Recent seasons have seen the emergence of fronting, in which a defenseman gets in front of a forward who has set up near the crease and tries to block the shot rather than move the forward out of the way. "That's how I get a lot of my blocks," says Rangers defenseman Mathieu Schneider, who led the NHL with 142 at week's end. "When I go down, it's a last resort. What you're hoping is to make the guy pass." Of course the shooter often lets the puck fly, which is why the safest method remains that employed by Coyotes defenseman Teppo Numminen, a 12-year veteran, who says, "If it's a hard shot, I get out of the way. And fast." Issue date: February 14, 2000
For more Inside the NHL see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, February 9. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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