USA Hockey Goaltending Development: #51in30 Progress Report
USA Hockey Goaltending Development:
#51in30 Progress Report
You may have seen the hashtag #51in30 in your Twitter and
Instagram feeds and wondered what it meant. In essence, #51in30 is USA Hockey’s rallying
cry in the attempt to put the US as the global leader in goaltending
development.
In 2017, USA Hockey introduced #51in30 which advances the goal of having 51% of the minutes played in the NHL and NWHL
played by Americans by the year 2030[1].
So basically, USA Hockey, within a player
development cycle or generation (13 years), not only wants to be the world leaders in
goaltending development but to also dominate it. This short article will briefly discuss the American
Development Model (ADM) for goaltenders and provide a progress report of the #51in30 initiative using USA Hockey's own metrics (when the data available allows for it)207.
As a Canadian goalie coach with more than a passing interest in comparative goaltending development systems, I could only sit in awe and wonder at the audacity and boldness of the statement #51in30. By providing non-goalie coaches a season-long plan for coaching American youth goaltenders, the idea was to increase not only the quality, but quantity of goaltenders as outlined in the November 9, 2017 article “A season-long plan for coaching your goaltenders”.
Phil Osaer, at the time USA Hockey’s ADM staff member responsible for youth goaltending development, noted that the program entailed “a holistic approach to improving the American goalie development culture through coach and parent education, goaltending development and collaboration with all aspects of the youth hockey world leading into junior hockey, collegiate hockey and ultimately onto professional hockey.”
Not every goalie, the thinking goes, “is fortunate enough to have a goalie-specific coach on staff or able to afford a personal goaltending coach. But there is more than enough goalie-specific educational material, drills and practices for any coach to quickly learn how to coach goalies.”2
Osaer adds that USA Hockey wants their goalies to “have the dream to play at the highest levels, to embrace that dream and for us to give them an environment and enable them to chase that dream with every resource. We’re big believers that when a child says they want to make it to the NHL or NWHL, that we want them to continue to chase that dream and we want them to achieve that dream and every hockey aspiration they have, knowing that throughout that process, they’re going to learn many valuable life lessons and they are going to be able to develop as players and as people.” (My emphasis).
What attracted me to the statement #51in30 was the fact that it is, some might say unabashedly American in its message (bold, clear, audacious, “insert American stereotype here”).
Let’s take a look at what the NHL and NWHL data tells us one third of the way through to 2030.
Since USA Hockey's roll out of the #51in30 initiative in 2017, the percentage of NHL total minutes played by American goalies dipped from 25.25% in the 2017-18 to 20.85% in the most recent season. Depending on how you look at it, this is a small failure in that there has not been much in the way of statistical gains or a big failure in that the number has actually dropped by 20% from 2017.
Figure 1: NHL Percentage of Total Minutes Played by Country 2017 to Present (Top 6 Countries).
National Women's Hockey League Data
Since USA Hockey's roll out of the #51in30 initiative in 2017, the percentage of NWHL games played played by American goalies fell dramatically from 11 American goalies playing 76.81% of total games played in 2017-18 to six American goalies playing 45% of total games played in the most recent regular season. I have used Games Played as proxy for Minutes Played due to incomplete data on the NWHL website. No matter how you present this data there is no way to avoid showing that there has been a sharp decline in American goaltenders' games played in the NWHL data since 2017.
Figure 2: NWHL Percentage of Total Games Played by Country 2017 to Present.
USA Hockey's #51in30 Progress Report Card
The data, four years since the 2017 roll out of the #51in30 initiative, is clear. One third of the way to 2030, the #51in30 initiative has not been successful in moving the proverbial needle in the direction USA Hockey would like. It is out of the scope of this article to work out the reasons why this is the case but I think part of it is due to the fact that the goal itself is quite lofty.
The last time any country's goalies was able to reach the 51% threshold of minutes played in the NHL was in 2008-09 by Canadian goalies. Since that season, Canadian goalies' share of minutes played has dropped dramatically (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: NHL Percentage of Total Minutes Played by Country since 2005-06 (Top 6 Countries).
On the women's side, the NWHL data shows an even bleaker picture from USA Hockey's #51in30 perspective. Up until this last season, American goalies in the NWHL exceeded the 51% threshold. Again, the scope of this article will not allow me to go into greater detail as to why this is the case. But part of the sharp decline can be explained by the small sample size and increase in number of non-American goalies in the league.
Figure 4: NWHL Percentage of Total Games Played by Country since League Inception (2015)
Silver Lining
Although the current numbers indicate a lack of current success using USA Hockey's own metrics, I would not go so far as to say that #51in30 is a failure. Forgetting for the moment the possibility (probability?) that current and future American NHL/NWHL goalies earn enough playing time to meet the #51in30 target, I think there is tremendous value in the initiative itself.
If nothing else, #51in30 provides USA Hockey with the opportunity, to echo Osaer when talking about youth goalies, to learn many valuable life lessons as they strive to reach the top of the goalie development. Kudos to USA Hockey for having the foresight to not only put together a goalie development program which is the envy of this Canadian goalie coach but for also being brash enough to set a target worthy of typical American boldness.
Note to Canadian goalie coaches:
#51in30 caught my attention because it is stereotypically American. Bold, brash, etc. I loved it. Let's get selfish for a second, I'm going to ask all of you to refer to Figure 3. Canadian goalies' share of total NHL minutes played has steadily decreased since 2008-09 to a low of 38.59% this past season. Please take note that this is 12 seasons (or a generation or development cycle of youth hockey players). We need to do better. How?
[1] USA
Hockey, “A season-long plan for coaching your goaltenders”. November 9, 2017. https://www.usahockey.com/news_article/show/854616
2 Search #51in30 on Twitter or visit www.USAHockeygoaltending.com for resources.
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