NHL goalies prepare through a personal mix of physical activation, on-ice movement, visual and mental focus, and opponent-specific work—not a single league-wide checklist. The aim is to arrive ready to react without making warm-up so demanding or elaborate that it becomes tiring or distracting.
What a starting goalie’s preparation includes
Reported routines combine several kinds of readiness. The balance differs by goalie: a routine may emphasize movement and edgework, hand-eye or vision drills, quiet visualization, or technical work with a coach. These are individual examples, not prescribed steps every NHL starter follows.
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- Physical activation: stretching, mobility, skating edges, and save-like movements.
- Attention and vision: visualization, eye-focus exercises, or hand-eye work.
- Game preparation: reads against an opponent’s attack and practice against the goalie’s own team.
- Personal habits: routines that help a goalie feel settled, provided they support rather than interfere with readiness.
How goalies warm up their bodies and get a feel for the ice
Gradual movement on the ice
A 2024 Florida Panthers profile described Sergei Bobrovsky’s progression before practice and morning skate: edging around the rink, held C-cuts and balance work, arm movements, save-like motions, and mobility stretches on his pads. Bobrovsky said he tries to get his mind and body in sync with how he is moving on the ice. The profile said he developed this approach about seven years earlier with independent goalie and movement coaches as he revised his regimen and sought to reduce stress on his body. It is one goalie’s method, not a universal warm-up or a medically established prescription. Florida Panthers / NHL.com describes Bobrovsky’s routine.
Off-ice mobility and activation
NHL.com’s 2019 reporting on Braden Holtby describes dynamic stretching alongside eye exercises and ball work. Together, these examples show that preparation can begin away from the ice as well as continue on it; the sources do not establish one standard order or duration. NHL.com’s report on goalie routines.
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How goalies prepare their eyes and attention
Holtby’s reported routine included visualization in a quiet room, throwing rubber balls against a wall, and shifting eye focus between points. These are examples of tools some goalies use, not equipment or exercises every starter needs. A ball can be used for hand-eye practice, but the reporting does not establish a brand or a performance benefit.
Preparation can also mean simplifying. In the same 2019 NHL.com report, Thatcher Demko said repeated tennis-ball drills left him sweating and with a sore rotator cuff, and he felt tired before games. He later cut back, saying, “I’m not a worse goalie because I can’t juggle a tennis ball as well as I did last game.” Jimmy Howard also simplified an intense visualization routine after a sports psychologist told him he had too much going on. These accounts make clear that more pregame work is not automatically better.
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How coaches prepare goalies for an opponent
Pregame readiness is not only ritual or warm-up. Seattle Kraken goalie coach Steve Briere described sessions that cover technique, game reads, and how to approach an opponent. Team practice gives goalies repetitions against their own team’s attack. Briere said he wants goalies to react rather than work through technical instructions during play: “Most of the time, I don’t want the goalies thinking during the game. They have to be just reacting.” His account also describes mental exercises intended to help goalies let go of a bad day, focus on the present, and recover more quickly. Briere discusses goalie coaching for the Kraken.
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The practical distinction is between preparation and performance: coaches can teach reads and communicate selectively beforehand, while the goalie’s movements in a game need to be responsive. The available accounts do not support a detailed, universal pre-start checklist.
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What changes when a goalie is the backup?
A backup may still need to enter because of injury or a starter’s poor performance, so reported pregame movement, stretching, visualization, and ball drills often remain similar whether a goalie is slated to start or not. Individual adjustments vary: in NHL.com’s 2020 report, Cam Talbot said he skipped a pregame nap when he was not starting, while Demko said he emphasized mobility more when starting. The article also described non-playing nights as a form of mental rest, even when goalies worked hard at practice or added work on other days. These are dated individual accounts, not a current league-wide survey. NHL.com reports on rest and goalie workload.
Routine is not the same as superstition
A routine can provide a familiar cue to focus, but that does not make every repeated habit a performance technique. In an Associated Press report published April 29, 2025, Colorado goalie Scott Wedgewood described his between-period sequence as a “game-on, turn-the-engine-on” habit. Logan Thompson, meanwhile, described moving away from superstitions that made him overthink. These are personal examples, not evidence that a particular ritual improves play. The Associated Press reports on NHL players’ routines.
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What the examples do—and do not—prove
The reports illustrate different approaches; they do not rank them or show that a specific routine causes better results. NHL.com noted that Holtby added guitar to his routine early in 2015–16, when he recorded 48 wins and tied Martin Brodeur’s single-season record. The story does not show that guitar or another part of his routine produced that total. Similarly, NHL.com reported Demko’s save percentage with Utica rising from .884 before he simplified his routine to .913 for the rest of that season; that before-and-after account does not establish that the change caused the improvement. The 2024 Bobrovsky profile mentioned his 32 saves in Florida’s 3–0 Game 1 win over Edmonton in the Stanley Cup Final as match context, not proof of routine effectiveness.
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