Ali said, “Float like a butterfly;” Allaire says, “Drop into the butterfly.”
Decades ago, boxing legend Muhammad Ali used his expression to explain a boxer’s movement in a ring. During this time period, in the game of hockey, goalies were using a “stand-up” style for their position play. Little did anyone know that by the mid-80’s, the “butterfly” style would become synonymous with hockey goaltenders of the future, thus creating a goalie-driven NHL.
Ali’s words encourage avoidance of shots, whereas Francois Allaire, the long-time NHL goalie coach who perfected the butterfly style, wants his students to absorb as many as possible.
The great sport of hockey has been around for over a century now, and if you flip through the history books, you find pivotal moments that have helped the sport evolve to the game we have today. As the sport changed, goalies had to change with it. Stick blades became curved; goalies responded with masks. Shots got stronger; goalies needed more padding.
Players became faster and smarter, and here again, the goalie had to evolve. However, with the inception of the butterfly style, it’s now the players, and league, that have to adapt to the goalie. To me, this was one of most profound moments in the NHL.
Let’s look at the past. In the early years, the style that was used by goaltenders was known as the “stand up” style. As the name indicates, this method kept goalies on their feet, helping them to cover as much of the net as possible. While this style would make sense for overall coverage of the net, it made low shots very difficult to handle. With this style, goalies either had to deflect the puck with their stick or make a skate save, which usually left the goalie exposed and out of position.
As mentioned earlier, the game was getting faster and the players stronger and smarter. Being exposed and out of position was not a luxury goalies were allotted anymore. It was time for a change in style, and that style would become known as the butterfly.
The butterfly style is the exact opposite of the stand-up style. The butterfly consists of a goalie dropping to his knees and flaring out his legs. This move not only closes the ever-dangerous five-hole, but it also closes the gaps under the goalies arms, essentially turning the goaltender into a wall.
The style was first seen, and adopted, in the 60’s, by goalie greats like Glenn Hall and Tony Espostio. However, the style did not erupt until the mid-80’s, when a 19-year-old third-round draft pick (No. 51 overall)and his goalie coach entered the league. Not only would that kid lead his team, the Montreal Canadiens, to the Stanley Cup a year later, he would also become the youngest winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy , awarded annually to the Stanley Cup playoff Most Valuable Player.
This young kid’s name was Patrick Roy. From there, the rest is history, as they say, for Roy and his coach, Francois Allaire, would change the dynamics of the position to what we see today.
The average sports fan may know the name Patrick Roy, the hall-of-fame goaltender who is currently the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche, but most would not know the man behind the legend, Allaire. Francois Allaire became a goalie coach for the Canadiens the same year Roy was drafted. Without his wisdom and teaching, I’m convinced Roy would not have become the star he turned out to be.
I myself have had the honor of learning the position under his guidance, and can tell you first hand, that this man is the reason goal scoring has dramatically dropped off in the NHL. To this day, I still remember something Allaire once told me, “Derek, amazing saves are good, but if you had to make one, it’s because you were out of position.” Every huge save I’ve seen a goalie make, from that moment on, has proven those words true.
Allaire created a system known as the “5-S” system, which stands for: Simple and Solid System who finds Solutions for most of the Situations in hockey. In layman’s terms, the goalie is playing the position for the greatest shot probability.
This is based on 3 main components:
- Solid Positioning
- Getting down in the butterfly, when warranted, to cover the bottom third of the net
- Taking up as much net as possible
Does the system work, you may ask? Well, let’s put it this way, in the 30 years (12 with the Canadiens, 13 with the Ducks, three with the Maple Leafs, and now with the Avalanche) Allaire has been teaching this system, he has quite the hardware to show for it.
He has contributed to: three Stanley Cups, three Conn Smythe Trophies, four William Jennings Trophies (Lowest GAA), and three Vezina’s (Best Goalie). These awards are great but it pales in comparison to the amount of net minders he has help get to the NHL. In total this man has created a legion reaching over 60 goalies in their respective professional leagues, and almost all can be found in the NHL.
In addition to Roy, some notable protégés, of Allaire’s, include: Marc-Andre Fleury, Cory Crawford, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Roberto Luongo, James Reimer, Ilya Bryzgolov, Jonas Hiller, Ben Scirvens, Henrik Lundquist, Jhonas Enroth, Frederic Chabot, Tomas Vokoun, Mathieu Garon, Jose Theodore, Jocelyn Thibault, Cristobal Huet, Martin Gerber, and Semyon Varlamov just to name a few.
If this is not enough evidence for you to believe, look at the chart below:
According to Hockey-Reference.com, we can clearly see that save percentages have drastically increased since 1985 (Remember when the style erupted into the league….).
And let’s look at current Canadiens goaltender Carey Price’s goals against percentages.
*All Habs Hockey Magazine, “A Look at Carey Price’s Goals Against (Goal Charts)”, by Steve Farnham
As you can see, Price barely gets beat under his arms and five-hole, and does very well covering his glove side. We can also see that roughly 36% of goals scored on him are from waist down, however it is recognized, by the NHL, that 70% of shots faced by goalies come from 0”- 18” of the ice. This also shows why the butterfly is the superior style for today’s net minder, as opposed to the stand up style of old, and why Allaire’s teachings have been so successful throughout the NHL.
So what is the NHL doing to increase scoring, counteract the teachings of Allaire, and the butterfly style? There isn’t much they can do. I see only two options: One, increase the size of the net or two, decrease the size of the goalie equipment.
The NHL has chosen the latter, but it’s been a futile fight. In 2010 the NHL enacted a rule that a goal pad could not go above 55percent, in length, from the center of the knee to the pelvis. This means that if a pad is 20 inches long, as most are, the pad can go no higher than 11 inches from the center of the knee. Just this year, the NHL changed the rule again, only this time making the measurement 45percent, which would equate to 9 inches.
This takes an extra two full inches off from the last rule only four years ago. I have a feeling more changes are soon to come, as this is not increasing scoring like the NHL had hoped. Just as with evolution of the skaters, goalies have also gotten bigger, stronger, and faster, with no sign of slowing down. You now have goalies like Pekka Rinne and Ben Bishop towering at 6’7” and 6’8” respectively, but still have the movement and agility of what we’re used to seeing in smaller goalies.
There is more than enough evidence that proves that the butterfly style has revolutionized the game of hockey. Most casual fans would state that it has made the game more boring, for the total number of goals per game has dropped significantly. However, growing up playing/watching the game I love, and seeing my coach’s system in action, I couldn’t be prouder to have learned from the best.
So, the long and short of it is, for the first time in the history of the NHL, the position of goalie has dictated the advancement of the game. Hybrid styles have been adopted as of late, but it’s safe to say, that the butterfly style, perfected by Allaire, is here to stay.
