Here we find ourselves in February, already! It's hard to believe, and with just one month remaining before we dive into our playoffs, our team is still grappling with making that critical four or five foot pass through the opposing teams sticks or skates while under pressure. The players are positioned correctly, the support is there, yet we struggle to move the puck against quicker teams. Over the past three months, I've felt like I've tried every strategy, from half-wall battle drills while looking to pass to your suppport player, to consistently integrating wall retrievals drills in practice, and so much more. In closely reviewing our games against what the top teams in our league are doing that we aren't, it struck me. We fail to recognize all of our options and simply turn the puck over to their forecheckers under pressure while trying to make the next play.

So, what do I do next? Naturally, I head to the search tab on The Coaches Site. I stumbled upon an on-ice presentation I attended two years ago in Ann Arbor, which hadn't quite resonated with me at the time. Yogi Svejkovsky and Kris Beech delivered an underrated presentation called Situational Passing and Receiving Progressions. Despite the various types of passes we can execute under heavy pressure and traffic during a game, Yogi makes an excellent point about teaching young players to have the ability to play defense while still understanding their offensive options if the puck were to come to them. As illustrated in the video clip of the Winnipeg Jets vs. NY Rangers, the Jets transition from offense to defense and back to offense, scoring a goal with less than a second of decision-making. So, how do we incorporate this skill into our practice plans, ensuring that by playoff time, we are playing fast and thinking even faster?

Movie; The Hustle

In this scene from the movie "Hustle," you can hear Adam Sandler's character saying, "Good players know where they are on the court, great players know where everyone else is." The issue with youth sports, particularly hockey, is that we train kids using pylons, which teaches them from a young age to focus solely on the puck while maneuvering around an object, instead of learning to use their peripheral vision to find teammates.

How Do We Practice This?

SITUATIONAL PASS/RECEIVE DRILL

DESCRIPTION

• One player and one coach. Player starts up ice stick handling with two pucks. Player passes one puck to coach when his stick is on the ice. Coach passes it back.
• Player and Coach continue passing until far blue line. Player shoots 1st puck and executes pre touch route for 2nd shot.

KEY POINTS

• Vision. Heads up stick handling.
• Pretouch route skating.