Percy LeSueur - Playing Style and Innovations

Playing Style and Innovations

He played with the alacrity of a tiger. He played with his hands, head, and feet. He never throws the puck away and in the tightest corners carries to the back of his net and gives it to one of his forwards.

During LeSueur's career, ice hockey rules forbade goalkeepers from lying, sitting, kneeling, or otherwise falling onto the ice to make a save. Forced to play a stand-up style, LeSueur was aggressive in goal and was sufficiently athletic to be able to stop two or three shots in quick succession. Hockey historian Bill Fitsell noted that he had an "intense roving style", playing the puck outside of his crease in a style popularized forty years later by Jacques Plante. His playing style was exemplified in a game against the Quebec Bulldogs, where LeSueur was reported to have sprinted towards and "floored" an opposing forward who was on a breakaway.

Described as a "thinking man's custodian", LeSueur is credited with two major innovations to ice hockey equipment. Around 1909, he experimented with using a baseball catcher's glove with extra padding to catch the puck. LeSueur later developed gauntlet-style gloves to protect the goaltender's forearms. He also designed the patented LeSueur net which was used from 1911 to 1925, first by the NHA and then its successor, the NHL. The net was designed to trap rising shots, with the rear frame 22 inches behind the goal mouth at the bottom of the net but only 17 inches at the top. Art Ross later improved on LeSueur's design, and his eponymous net was used by the NHL from 1927 to 1984.