Improving our game

Practice is where we work on improving our game. Sometimes it might seem like I’m going over and over the same thing, only from different angles. It might seem like this because it is exactly what I’m doing. Players don’t all look at things the same way. What might seem perfectly logical to one person might not make any sense to another. This could be from a communication problem, or lack of familiarity with a drill. Sometimes it’s easier to try another approach until everyone is on the same page. Just describing a play or action won’t work. You need to do it. Your body needs to become familiar with the action, and it takes time to learn any new skill. The idea of breaking out of the zone seems simple enough. You make good passes, you skate hard to the puck, you attack the other goal quickly, and you work with your teammate while looking for opportunities. These opportunities come from good positioning, finding the open net, and taking advantage of rebounds. First you need to quickly get the puck out of your own defensive end. Get the puck into the neutral zone with a smart pass, pick it up and quickly attack the other team’s net. Learn to use the boards to place the puck out in front of your teammate moving through the neutral zone. This all seems simple enough. Throw in a few qualifiers like follow your pass, get the puck in deep, support the puck, and things start to sound more complicated then they really are. We worked hard all season getting five players to setup and execute a simple breakout, but in games we sometimes couldn’t get the puck out fast enough, or we tried skating it out under pressure. The last couple of practices I went back to a simple approach. First we worked on dumping the puck. A lot of players are reluctant to dump the puck in deep because it forces them to skate hard to the corners, but that’s where a lot can happen. Even if the other team picks up the puck, they still have a long way to go to get to your end. We don’t want this to happen, so we pour on the pressure with speed. The next thing we worked on has been shooting farther out. This can set up rebounds on some goalies, and sometimes it even goes in (like at today’s game). Not every goal needs to be delivered right to the front door. We went back over battling for position in front of the goal. You need to be able to stay on your feet if you’re going to keep your position in front of the opponent’s net. They don’t want you there, so they will try to move you out of position and keep the puck away from you. We went back to a two-man breakout to work on the passing and kick up the speed. Last but not least we have been learning where to expect the puck. This is from sending the puck around the boards behind the net, using the boards to make passes, and where to expect the rebounds to pop out. That’s a lot to cover, but we’ve been able to work it all into different practice sessions. Last week’s game didn’t go very well, but today’s did. Everything we have been working on, we did in today’s game. We won the game, but mostly we played much better. The season is not yet over, and there are some tough games coming up. We’ll take them one game at a time.