My Dad used to call this “Shooting Against the Grain”. Its a great tool to use in shootouts or high in the offensive zone, where you can create space and have the goalie track you, leaving the side they’ve left open.

If you are a right handed shot, move your body from Left to Right, or if you are a left handed shot, move your body Right to Left. This will pull the goalie with you across the net front.

As the goalie is still moving and not completely set, you can shoot back against the direction they are headed, and find space in the spot they have vacated.

Its great for Shootouts when you have time and space as you can see in the above clip or in this Pavel Datsyuk goal- Datsyuk "Against the Grain"

But you can also use it high in the offensive zone and a D walks the blueline or on an entry as the defenseman create traffic in front.

Ilya Kovalchuk used to do this very well as a right handed shot entering the zone and cutting behind the middle drive. I couldnt find a perfect example, but here is one where he is moving right to left and he finds a space in the lower half of the net on the goaltender- Kovalchuk First Goal as a Devil

Hope this helps you with your athletes!

By Andrew Trimble