NHL analyst Dan Robson weighs in on why Canada is behind the curve in developing top goalies

NHL insider Dan Robson analyzed Team Canada’s performance against Sweden in the opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off. He discussed Canadian goalie Jordan Binnington in particular during the "TSN 1050’s First Up with Korolnek and Colaiacovo" podcast on Thursday.

Robson, a senior writer with The Athletic, spoke about developing goaltenders in Canada and why it might be lagging in recent years.

"Spoke to a lot of people to sort of try to get to the root of what's going on here,” Robson said. “Primarily, you see a rise of European and Russian goalies. And because they look at what Canada is doing and they take on that model and they adapt it.” [3:30 onwards]

Robson wrote an article on the issue with fellow reporter James Mirtle for The Athletic on Wednesday. In the article, they highlighted the drop in the number of Canadian goalies in the NHL over the past two decades in particular.

“Today, however, Europeans are twice as prevalent as Canadians, and the Americans are on the verge of passing Canada,” Robson said via The Athletic.

He elaborated on what he had said in his article during the podcast.

“But their (Europe’s) systems, especially in Sweden and Finland, are much more sort of top-down, focused on being able to have that implemented system. So they moved towards a more holistic approach to training and they managed to sort of look at what Canada was doing and adapt in their own way,” Robson added.

"At the same time, as you hit on, at the grassroots level, coming up, we had this sort of heavy focus on very specific goaltending movements; being almost a perfectionist, dictated prescriptive goaltending that made kids look incredible in the net because they can move around so fluidly. What we're lacking was sort of the ability to have the best athletes get into that position."

Hockey analysts had concerns about Team Canada’s goaltending

Many hockey analysts believed that netminding would be Canada’s weak area in the 4 Nations Face-Off. Binnington’s performance during the opening game on Wednesday would have done very little to allay their fears.

On Monday’s edition of First Up, former NHL coach Bruce Boudreau shared his take on the issue.

“It’s usually the goalie that wins the Stanley Cup for you in the end,” Boudreau said. “I don’t know if the Canadian goaltenders can outplay the opponent’s goaltenders. That’s my worry. Can the Canadian team outscore the other team?”

Canada will face the USA next in the 4 Nations tournament on Saturday.