Load management among professional hockey goalies: A retrospective cohort study

Load management is a sports science concept describing the execution of well-established training principles to measure athletic workloads and enhance performance. The term ‘load management’ has become common in sports media to refer to a much wider range of scenarios, including the idea that by limiting regular season workload for athletes, their health and playoff performance will improve. Varying links between load and performance have been demonstrated in baseball and soccer. The purpose of this study was to objectively assess the impact of regular season workload on postseason performance among National Hockey League (NHL) goalies.