Here’s the things with making fake-shots and fake-passes: At the higher levels of hockey, you don’t have to actually make a “fake” to make what amounts to a fake.



If any player is going to shoot the puck, they have to make certain biomechanical movements. They vary slightly by player, but there are common threads — one being the lowering of the shoulder on your top-hand side, like a lean in. You can’t shoot while upright. Another tell that a player is going to shoot, is that they hang on to the puck for an extra few milliseconds. In our sport, you don’t get a lot of time to just have the puck. Because of that, not everyone is comfortable having it on their stick for extended periods of time. They’re used to unloading it ASAP. So that means the longer a player has it, the more a goalie expects them to do something with it.



If you add all that up, a “fake,” could simply be a tiny top-shoulder lean while holding...