Christmas 2007

You’ve just caught the puck on a breakout pass off the boards from your defense. You skate across the centerline, wind up and take a slap shot hard on net. Your right-winger is flying in full speed heading for the net. The goalie stops the puck but can’t control the rebound out to the right of the net. By now you slide by the defense and you’re only a few feet away from the crease. Your winger taps the puck across to you – you send it into the open side of the net before the goalie can slide across. His defensemen are caught off guard. Everything seems to slow down, but in reality it was only seconds from when you started out of your own zone. You’ve beaten the defense and caught the goalie out of position. Ok, now practice this fifty more times and we’ll try it during the game. This whole past week we worked on dumping the puck, shooting on net before crossing the far blue line, and picking up the puck as it rings around the boards out to the other side. Sometimes I want to see if the team will do what I ask and try something a little different than what seems like the logical choice. It’s not easy to take a shot when you’re moving at full speed. It’s a lot easier to try and carry the puck to the net, but that can’t be all you ever do. Sometimes skating down the boards is not such a good idea, especially when it becomes predictable. The defense wants to push you towards the boards – now you’re making it easy for them. When you shoot on net from outside the offensive zone it should be an easy save for the goalie, but it isn’t always. Sometimes the goalie is out of position or back too far and the puck goes in. It sometimes goes off the post or behind the net and pops out front. Sometimes the goalie can’t control the rebound and it pops out front just begging for a second shot. If there’s pressure on the blue line, or some slow moving trap – send it into the corner away from the net then go get it. If you need to change – and you should, now’s your chance to get fresh legs out on the ice. Use your speed. Shoot fast and think ahead. Well we worked on it and we worked on it. Sunday during the game we seemed to forget for a while, but then it happened. The second period came; we went over the plan again, and slowly started putting it together. I think the second period is where we knew we were winning, but you can’t let up until the buzzer sounds the end of the game. Although changing things up may have taken us off balance for a while I think we regained our momentum. We still need to cut the shifts down and shoot harder, but we’re getting there. We had come off a very strange weekend that went from 50’ degrees and heavy rain to some serious wind and snow north of the city. Well, it’s Christmas what do you expect. I’m happy to report that the team continues to work hard. That’s a pretty good Christmas present for any coach. Winning is pretty nice, but playing really well is more important right now. So far – So good!
Merry Christmas!