Saving Cal Petersen: The Kings’ goalie needs a complete technical overhaul

Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna(MikeMcKenna56)
Saving Cal Petersen: The Kings’ goalie needs a complete technical overhaul

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It’s been a terrible first quarter of the 2022-23 season for Los Angeles Kings netminder Cal Petersen. He owns an .868 save percentage, and on Wednesday, Los Angeles put him on waivers. By Thursday, Petersen had cleared.

The move followed a disappointing relief effort Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken in which Petersen allowed four goals on 16 shots after taking over for Jonathan Quick early in the second period.

I’m sure the Kings want Petersen to play games in the AHL and regain his confidence. Because right now it’s at rock bottom.

Petersen’s reaction says it all. He can’t believe it happened again. Another unexplainable goal. And the gut-wrenching feeling that comes along with it.

But here’s the problem. The goal is explainable. Petersen isn’t square to the shot. He’s caught between RVH and overlap post integrations. And he doesn’t track the puck well enough to find it off his blocker.

It’s a microcosm of what’s been happening with Petersen for the better part of two seasons. Only this year his confidence has tanked. And the Kings haven’t been as strong defensively in front of him. That’s a bad combination. Especially for a goalie with a $5 million cap hit through the 2024-25 season.

Going to the AHL does take some pressure off. It’s a different environment in the minors and Petersen won’t be under constant scrutiny. And the Kings can let him log a ton of minutes in the AHL. Right now – at the NHL level – they can’t afford to let points slip away. It’s happened too often this year when Petersen has played.

If I’m Kings management, I want to see Petersen go to Ontario and work closely with goaltending development coach Matt Millar. Because there are several problem areas that need to be addressed. Things that I believe a boost in confidence won’t overcome.

The first item on the list is Petersen’s basic stance. Look how small he is in this clip against the Dallas Stars. Petersen is reaching forward with his glove hand and failing to fill space. Stars forward Tyler Seguin sees all kinds of space high glove side. And he picks the corner.

For me, this type of goal is often labeled as a great shot rather than a breakdown in technique. The way Petersen presents his glove hand doesn’t give any visual deterrent. And it slows down his reaction time. Seguin does a nice job of changing the angle before release, but from that distance, Petersen needs to come up with the save.

Stance is one thing. But playing without structure is another. I think Petersen’s biggest hurdle will be finding an element of control to his game. Because in my eyes, he spends far too much time chasing the game.

Petersen has a tendency to lead with his hands, and in doing so, fails to rotate his body. That leaves holes. And it prevents the Kings goaltender from effectively using his posts as bumpers. Petersen ends up in front of the cage while moving laterally quite often. And that causes him to spend a lot of time outside the blue paint, scrambling to make saves.

This goal by the Minnesota Wild is well executed. But Petersen makes several technical errors leading up to it. The first I see – not rotating to his post – is one of the biggest trouble areas of his game.

When the first pass goes through middle ice, Petersen moves straight across the crease. Rather than crash into the far post and control his movement, Petersen reaches with his right pad. His route is off. Then he instinctively reaches forward with his glove hand and goes into a full split. All while dropping his blocker hand and going paddle down with his stick. 

At this point, he’s stuck. There’s no recovering from this position. Petersen is giving the shooter a ton of space high because his body is so low and spread. And because he’s in the splits and paddle down, he cannot rotate to his left. It’s nearly impossible.

By the end of the play, the puck is in the net and Petersen is in the white ice. At first glance, the save looks impossible. But watch how other NHL goaltenders – like New York Islander Ilya Sorokin, shown in the clip below – rotate to their posts, keep their bodies upright, and stay in the blue paint. It’s routine for most of them.

Sorokin is playing between his posts. He’s balanced and in complete control. The Islanders netminder keeps his knees under him and rotates efficiently. The clip isn’t directly comparable to the goal Petersen allowed against Minnesota. But it’s similar. And it does show what an NHL goaltender is capable of when he stays between his posts.

For Petersen, reaching is the norm. Control is not. He’s expending so much energy. Petersen loses his net as much as any NHL goaltender. And it all comes down to a lack of technical execution.

I have to believe Petersen knows what he should be doing in these situations. There’s no way he can objectively look at himself in a full split outside of his posts and think it’s the most effective way to be consistent.

No doubt Petersen has practiced making this type of side-to-side save before. I bet he can rotate and hit his post every time in practice. But it’s not happening in games. And that’s going to be the biggest challenge Millar faces when attempting to revamp Petersen.

How do you reinforce the good and minimize the bad? How do you help a goalie with technical deficiencies regain confidence? How do you give Petersen the tools to stay in control? How do you help a goalie modernize?

Those are just some of the hard questions Millar and Petersen need to find answers to. Because this isn’t just mental for the Kings $5 million dollar netminder. NHL teams are well aware of his weaknesses and exploiting them.

I don’t think Petersen is a goalie that just needs to play his way out of it. I think he needs to attend a mid-season goalie school. And I know that Petersen has to find his own happy place inside the crease. Because it looks like hockey hasn’t been fun for him in quite some time.

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