When Alex Nedeljkovic looks at the NHL save percentage leaders for this season and recognizes the names of so many fellow goalies from the United States near the top, the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie sees the fruit of a lot of labor by USA Hockey.
Among goalies who had played at least 15 games this season entering Wednesday, four of the top six, seven of the top 11 and nine of the top 20 in save percentage were American. That included Nedeljkovic, who has a .908 save percentage in 21 games and credits a lot of the success to the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.
“I think a big part of why you’re seeing more and more upcoming American goalies, and even players in general, is the work that the NTDP does,” said Nedeljkovic, who was born in Parma, Ohio, and played with the NTDP U-18 team in 2013-14. “It’s a great program that develops kids and moves them to the next level, whether it’s NCAA or juniors, ready to compete at high levels.”
The NTDP operates an Under-17 team that plays junior hockey in the United States Hockey League as well as in three international events annually, and an Under-18 team that competes against NCAA teams as well as USHL teams and in three international tournaments each season.
But the work being done by USA Hockey to develop more, and better, goalies isn’t limited to that program and those teams. It also has run an annual National Goaltending Camp since 2008, and the position-specific focus is expanding this spring with the first National Goaltending Symposium, being held May 30-June 2 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The four-day event is set to build off the level-5 coaching symposiums USA Hockey has been running since the late 1970s. Those included a “sprinkle” of goalie content in recent years, said Steve Thompson, USA Hockey’s manager of goaltending development since 2019. There was a desire to expand the position-specific offerings with something dedicated entirely to goalies, including seminars geared toward goalie coaches, and a one-day expo with special guests and a showcase of the latest equipment and other development tools.
“It's going to be an opportunity for all of our goalie fans, current goalies, goalie parents, goalie coaches, you name it, to come together and hear from the legends of USA Hockey goaltending on the international front, some former and current NHL goalie coaches and head coaches that are former goalies, some NHL alumni, some current NHL American goalies,” Thompson said. “It’s just a way to get all of our best and brightest under one roof to share their passion for the position but also brainstorm the future of the position and how we can move forward and collectively make goaltending better in the USA.”
The goal is to grow the sense of community within American goaltending at a grassroots level while also finding avenues to gain a competitive advantage. It echoes national goaltending gatherings that have been going on in Finland and Sweden for decades, with a mandate to share new information and ideas among goalie coaches from across the country.
“The goal is for our country's best to all be in a room to share ideas on where they think the position is going and to try and find little pockets of the country that maybe don't get access to all these resources and bigger names,” Thompson said, “so they can bring back to their local communities and serve their youth hockey populations. So there's a grassroots side of it that we hope is going to breed more passion for the position and more opportunity to grow, but then also on the high-performance side of, ‘What can we do nationally that's going to allow our goalies to leapfrog other goalies that are fighting for the same minutes?’”
USA Hockey’s goal is to have American goalies playing 51 percent of those NHL minutes by 2030, an initiative started in 2016. Using a starting point of 2007, the year USA Hockey hired its first full-time goalie coach and launched the national goalie camp and other initiatives to combat low NHL numbers, it has progressed from having 11 American goalies playing 11.4 percent of NHL minutes in the 2007-08 season to a peak of 28 goalies in 2018-19 and high of 23.5 percent of NHL minutes in 2017-18.
The latter number has ranged between 18 to 23.2 percent since, but even with the number of goalies dropping to 19 this season, the minutes played at the position by Americans remains steady as the roles for young goalies increase, including 21.3 percent this season through Tuesday.
Only Canada, at 28.8 percent, accounted for more goalie minutes played in the NHL this season, and no country had more goalies with 15 games played in the top 20 among NHL save percentage than the nine from the United States. Canada is next with five, and Russia has three.
“It all kind of started with Ryan Miller and the next big guy for me was Jonathan Quick and he's still around [with the New York Rangers] and having a great year,” said Vancouver Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko, who is from San Diego, played for the NTDP in 2011-12 and 2012-13 and is tied for fifth in the NHL with a .916 save percentage. “And obviously Connor [Hellebuyck] has been at the top of the game almost as long as he's been in the League, so it's great to see and obviously it's a credit to USA Hockey and how they develop their goalies.”
Half of the eight goalies at the 2024 NHL All Star Game in Toronto were American: Connor Hellebuyck and Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins, who for the NHL lead with a .922 save percentage; Demko and Jake Oettinger of the Dallas Stars.
Thompson believes the number of American goalies near the top of the NHL now will inspire more athletes from different parts of the United States to want to play the position. He already has seen the effect Swayman is having in their home state of Alaska.
“There are a lot of kids right now that want to be Jeremy Swayman when they grow up, and I think there's going to be examples of that with all of these local communities when they have somebody playing well, putting on that NHL All-Star jersey,” Thompson said. “That becomes the reference for how they can make it. There's a lot of kids right now thinking, ‘Hey, if I'm going to be in the NHL one day, I'm going to strap the pads on like my hero and I'm going to find a way.’”
New programs like the National Goaltending Symposium are designed to inspire more to think the same way and then give them the best tools if they do.
For Thompson, it’s all proof that grassroots efforts and national programs work.
“This shows when we do things right for youth,” he said, “it trickles up.”
