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Between them, Mike Dunham and Brian Boucher claim 15 seasons of NHL goaltending experience.

But this past summer, during chilly sessions in Tewksbury's Superskills Rink, the veteran goalies lined up for drills behind a pale, redheaded 19-year-old just over a year removed from receiving his Phillips Andover diploma.

As Brian Daccord, the former Bruins goaltending coach who was leading the camp, called out the drills, Dunham and Boucher let the teenager go first, studying his technique and trying to incorporate his movements into their games.

''They're both fantastic goaltenders," said Boston College sophomore Cory Schneider, the target of their gazes. ''They just grew up with different rules and learning styles. When [Daccord] tells them this stuff, it's almost foreign to them. They don't know what it is. I've been doing it for five or six years now, so I can show them how it's done."

Hockey insiders at all levels agree that goaltending, partly because of lighter equipment but mostly because of coaching advances, has evolved the most of any position in the past decade. Where skaters are encouraged to improvise and use their creativity, just the opposite is demanded of today's goaltenders, who learn terms such as loading, edge control, and steering to master the butterfly style that has become the preferred puck-stopping standard.

The 6-foot-2-inch, 200-pound Schneider (17-6-1, 2.00 goals-against average, .928 save percentage), who will backstop his Eagles tonight in the Beanpot championship against Boston University, is a picture-perfect product of this approach, having soaked up Daccord's teachings during his summer camps since his sophomore year in high school. This year, the 2004 first-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks recorded three straight shutouts. He was the No. 1 goalie for Team USA in the World Junior Championships. He fell 12 minutes 4 seconds short of tying an NCAA record for consecutive minutes without allowing a goal, a mark set by former BC netminder Scott Clemmensen.

''Cory is a guy that reads the play well, has really good athleticism, and is very strong technically," Daccord said. ''He's the triple threat you're looking for in a goaltender right now. A guy who's not a great athlete can't play in the NHL right now. A technical guy without athleticism can't play. If you can't read the play, you can't play, either. It's too fast and there are too many guys open. Cory seems to possess all three things."

During weekday practices, BC captain Peter Harrold gets a puck on his stick and aims for a slice of space against Schneider, but the defenseman doesn't usually find one.

''With his angles, he's always in the right position," Harrold said. ''That's why he makes it look easy. It's hard to find open spots to shoot on."

It wasn't always that way. At Marblehead High, where Schneider spent his freshman year, he flopped and flailed, stopping his share of rubber. But under Daccord, Schneider learned that a get-up, fall-down, thrash-all-around style wasted movement and burned precious recovery seconds that trigger-happy shooters would turn into goals. Schneider underwent a transformation, using techniques Daccord taught him, to play a settled style where he'd stand tall, use minor movements to reposition himself after initial saves, and resort to his athleticism only in last-ditch scrambles.

Still, BC's original plan was for this year to be his freshman season. The Eagles wanted Schneider to play one year in the USHL for the Green Bay Gamblers, the team coached by former Harvard bench boss Mark Mazzoleni. But Schneider performed well during his senior season at Andover, and when former forward Adam Pineault left BC for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, a scholarship opened up for the netminder last year.

With further instruction from BC goalie coach Jim Logue, Schneider, who split time with senior Matti Kaltiainen last season before claiming the starting job in the postseason, has become the No. 1 goaltender this year, playing in all but three games when he was competing in the world juniors. Last year, he was still a wide-eyed freshman who, to remind himself of good habits, taped a handwritten reminder inside his blocker and before each game looked at the words -- ''Don't fear failure. Confidence. 100 percent. Aggressively patient. Trust your hands."

Schneider's since ordered new equipment and hasn't resorted to the tape. He doesn't need to anymore.

''He's got more poise this year," said BC coach Jerry York. ''He was an accomplished goaltender when he came here, but now he's getting more mature and stronger as he ages. He's a bigger kid now, bigger and stronger. He gives us a sense of calmness."

Daccord is in accord, seeing Schneider brimming with confidence, using the tools he's been taught to control rebounds, recover after making the initial save, and improve a technique called loading, where the goalie positions his skate at an angle against the post and is ready to push off that blade to stop wraparounds and point-blank jams. Daccord credited the thousands of repetitions of drills Schneider has performed each summer, burning into his muscle memory the movements that have become automatic during the season.

But since the new year, Schneider's game has entered a new realm. For three weeks, he left Chestnut Hill for British Columbia, where Team USA coach Walt Kyle named him the No. 1 goalie for the world juniors. Upon his return, his coaches and teammates have noticed a goaltender who's become even better.

''He's been unbelievable," Harrold said. ''He's taken it to another level. He came back from the world juniors and he's making ridiculous saves at this point."

During the tournament, Schneider and the Americans faced an elite crew of teenage talent. The Canadian club, which included BC teammate Dan Bertram, repeatedly crashed the net. The Russians, who torched Schneider for three third-period goals in a 5-1 loss, threw few dumps and careened through the neutral zone with speed, stickhandling, and finishing in a manner the netminder rarely has seen in college hockey.

The Americans failed to win a medal, but Schneider, who went 2-3-1 with a 2.67 GAA and a .912 save percentage during the tourney, returned with newfound confidence.

Once he pulled his BC sweater back on, the shots seemed slower. He felt tighter and taller between the pipes. During a seven-win stretch that dated to Dec. 6, Schneider posted three shutouts, including a 22-save performance against Vermont Jan. 20 that Vancouver goaltending coach Ian Clark saw.

During that stretch, Schneider went 7-0-0 with a 0.43 GAA and a .984 save percentage, prompting BU coach Jack Parker, before his club's streak-snapping 4-3 win Jan. 27, to say that if he disclosed the netminder's numbers to the Terriers, they might not have traveled up Commonwealth Ave. for the game.

''The atmosphere [at the world juniors] was very intense and the pressure to succeed was high," said Canucks GM Dave Nonis, who was in attendance for several of his draft pick's performances. ''I thought that Cory, in a number of games, was put in a situation where he had to perform at a high level to give his team a chance to win. One of two things happen: Either you handle that moment or you wilt. Cory did a good job of handling that pressure in the moment and he's been able to carry that forward to BC once he returned."

More than ever, Schneider's been focusing, like all NHL netminders, on repositioning himself for second and third opportunities after making the initial save. Tonight, he'll need to rely on those techniques against a BU club that has played with swagger against the otherwise unflappable Schneider. Last month, the Terriers stopped his scoreless streak at 242:19 with a second-period score, then potted three more goals to claim the win. In December, the hard-shooting Terriers put six shots past Schneider in a 6-2 win.

On several occasions this year, York has wondered whether this might be the redhead's last season in maroon and gold. Schneider, who hasn't chosen a family adviser (who usually becomes a player's agent once he turns pro), said he isn't dwelling on his professional career just yet. But if, indeed, this is his final Beanpot, the sophomore would like a win that much more.

''When is the right time for a player to come and start a pro career? The players let you know when that's the case," said Nonis, whose netminding depth chart includes Alexander Auld, Dan Cloutier, and Maxime Ouellet. ''It's not letting you know verbally, but with how they play. Have they accomplished all they can accomplish? Can they improve any more at that level? You have to say there are some programs that you'd be more inclined to move players from than others, but we're very happy with his development at Boston College. No question about it."