Scoring Takes a Special Touch

Lots of players shoot, but few have the goal-scoring knack Mario Lemieux has brought back to the game. Great goal scorers like Lemieux have an innate ability to see a play develop before it happens and the patience to cash in a scoring opportunity.

“It’s a reaction to certain situations and an ability to play the shot in your mind in that split second you have before you have to shoot,” says Mighty Ducks right winger Teemu Selanne, trying to define a scorer’s ability.

Release . . . accuracy . . . skating speed. Those are the physical components of goal scoring, the parts you can measure and sometimes teach.

But there’s another side--the mental side--and that’s where the mystery resides. The ability to get open . . . timing . . . a sense of the situation . . . instinct . . . hunger.

Those things you can’t teach.

“I didn’t know I had those instincts when I was growing up,” Stars right winger Brett Hull says. “I just played. I used to be a shooter because I couldn’t skate that well. I could shoot so well that I would overpower goalies and score. But I found out that wasn’t enough when I got to the NHL. I had to skate better, lose some weight and get myself in better shape. And, in the process, that allowed me to get to the holes to get my shot off.

“That’s when I learned I had the instincts to be a goal scorer in the NHL. All of a sudden the things that I probably always could do came into play because I had a quicker step, I had more jump, and I was playing with quicker and smarter players.”

To be a successful goal scorer, you’ve got to be selfish. You’ve got to want the puck. In fact, a goal scorer has to have a little Tiger Woods in him: He’s got to be able to think the shot through, picturing it all the way to the hole -- or, in this case, the net -- and then execute the shot with supreme confidence.

Five-hole. Low stick side. High short side. Make a quick fake and force the goalie to go from side to side. All of these tactics can work, just as a slap shot, a snap shot, a wrist shot or a backhander will work in the right situation. But pay attention to the true goal scorers, and you’ll see how they work the corners -- much like a Greg Maddux or a Tom Glavine do the strike zone -- probing to find the weaknesses of a goalie.

“Goalies are pretty slick,” says Kings left winger Luc Robitaille. “Patrick Roy is famous for showing you an opening, five-hole usually, and then taking it away from you.

“Marty Brodeur does the same thing. He dares you to shoot high -- and then he takes everything away from you with the great saves he makes with his glove.”

But like some kind of hockey Houdini, the great goal scorer always seems to be able to find the magic needed to get that red light turned on.

The Kings have led the NHL in scoring for most of the season, and they have a guy who hasn’t scored a goal in the NHL since 1987 to thank for it. Former Islanders standout Mike Bossy, in one way or another, kindled the goal-scoring prowess that both Robitaille and Ziggy Palffy bring to the Los Angeles lineup.

Robitaille learned from Bossy’s autobiography. Palffy benefited from talking to Bossy and studying videotape of the renowned goal scorer when Palffy was breaking into the NHL with the Isles.

“In his book,” Robitaille says, “he said the simplest advice he could give is shoot five-hole. You don’t miss the net that way. He also said positioning cannot be replaced, that you always get a good goal-scoring opportunity if you look for the opening and find it. That’s what goal scoring is -- knowing where to be.”

Robitaille has worked wonders with those tips, scoring more than 550 career goals. Palffy got on-the-job training from Bossy -- who scored 50 or more goals in each of his first nine seasons -- when Bossy returned to Long Island on alumni days.

“Watching and talking to Mike was a revelation,” says Palffy, who was just a chubby out-of-shape kid with talent but no direction when he joined the Islanders in 1993-94. “It was like watching a magician work and getting tips on how his tricks really worked.

“In watching Mike on tape I found out that quickness counts. In watching him in person at the practice rink, I couldn’t believe some of the things he did with the puck.”

Teams sometimes use shooting aids in practice when goalies aren’t available. These aids are equipped with holes, one in each corner of the net and a fifth where there would be an opening between the goalie’s pads.

One day during a Bossy visit to the Islanders, Palffy says, pranksters messed with the shooter tutor so that it was almost impossible to score.

“But Bossy got the last laugh,” Palffy says. “Like a golfer putting some hook on a shot, Mike changed his follow-through to turn the puck on its side. Just that quick, he turns the tables on them -- and scored.”

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Practices can be pretty humdrum. Stretching, skating, shooting. Stops-and-starts. Agility drills. Breakout practice. Odd-man rushes. Power-play time. The object of most practices is to keep the players moving.

Practices can have a different twist, however. Before Game 1 of the 1999 Stanley Cup finals in Dallas, the Stars sent then minor league goalie Marty Turco into the goal crease in an attempt to get a taste of the acrobatics of Sabres goaltender Dominik Hasek.

While Turco never has been accused of being Hasek, he did his best impression of The Dominator that day, lying on his side and forcing the Dallas shooters to lift the puck high into the net. Coach Ken Hitchcock knew the Stars certainly wouldn’t get many chances to score into the lower half of the net against Hasek.

Nonetheless, preparation only goes so far. “Anyone can lift the puck in practice, but when the game is on the line it feels like it’s two or three pounds on the blade of your stick,” Stars center Mike Modano says.

Every team has a scouting report on how to get around a goaltender before he gets hot. Shoot high ... five-hole ... glove side.

But when you ask Mighty Ducks left winger Paul Kariya what makes a great goal scorer, he says, “I’ve always come to the conclusion that it’s timing and anticipation, a sixth sense.”

But Kariya believes shooting, passing and most other skills also can be learned from studying tape.

“I remember playing with him in the World Championships one year,” Red Wings left winger Brendan Shanahan says. “Paul came up to me, introduced himself and started telling me how he would look for me in the left-wing circle for quick one-timers and hit me on the fly with lead passes. I said, ‘Yeah, but how did you know?’ He said he had studied tapes of the way I played, and he tried to pick up some of the best from all of the best players.”

But sometimes teaching and studying tape only can go so far. Some players just see a different game.

Maple Leafs goalie Glenn Healy skated with forwards at practice with the Rangers a few years back, and he was talking to Wayne Gretzky, then a teammate. “ ‘All I see are opponents’ bodies,’ Healy recalls saying. ‘When I asked Wayne what he saw, he said, ‘I see the blades of my teammates’ sticks.’ ”

That’s instinct.