Sometimes the biggest changes in your team’s game come from the smallest details. This season, that detail came from a concept I picked up in Laura Schuller’s Finding the Details series. She introduced the idea of creating 2v1s within your breakout, not by changing your entire structure, but by sharpening how players read support, timing, and spacing.

I started experimenting with it in practice, adding a second quick drill that Schuller showed in her presentation, which you can see in our recent clip. It looks simple: a puck retrieval, an immediate shoulder check, and a support player sliding into a pocket of space to create a 2v1. But with that advantage, it changed how my players moved and supported one another on the ice.

After the first month, our wingers stopped being stuck on the wall with no options. Our defenders began skating into their outs instead of firing pucks under pressure. Most importantly, the entire group started thinking the game together. Instead of hoping for a clean breakout, they were reading pressure, shifting routes, and deliberately creating those small pockets of advantage that lead to big plays.

A simple detail. A quick drill. A massive difference in confidence, connection, and outcomes by using our show it, practice it, transfer it process!

Sometimes coaching isn’t about adding more, it’s about tightening what already works. And this 2v1 concept has quickly become one of the most valuable details in our toolbox.