By Jesse Granger (The Athletic)
Following his three-goal game against the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference final last month, Dallas Stars winger Jason Robertson gave the credit for his final goal to an interesting source.
“It’s from a lot of work with our goalies in practice, and you learn stuff,” he said to Sportsnet after the game. “I can credit my goalie coach on that one.”
Generating goals isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about goalie coaches, but the seldom-seen assistants who watch games from high above the ice in the press box do more to help their teams create offense than one might think.
Robertson didn’t go into detail when crediting Stars goalie coach Jeff Reese with his third goal of Game 3 on May 27, but it was almost certainly the result of a tendency Reese pointed out to him in the practices leading into that game. The goal was scored from below the goal line on a jam play to the side of the net, where Robertson found just enough space between Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner’s skate and the nearside post.
Skinner made a mistake in his positioning by putting his skate blade on the post, rather than the toe of his leg pad boot. That left the tiniest of openings, and Robertson was well-coached and ready to expose it.
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