Jeff Blashill knows that getting the most out of his players means getting the most out of practice.

The 47-year-old, who has two championships under his belt (Indiana Ice, USHL championship, 2008-09 & Grand Rapids Griffins, AHL, 2012-13) recently spoke during the Virtual Hockey Summit, sharing his philosophy for planning and executing a successful practice.

There is a lot of quality content in this Q&A between Blashill and The Coaches Site founder Aaron Wilbur, but one word used throughout is communication. Blashill goes as far as breaking down practice on four levels: how were the players individually, how was the team overall, how were we as coaches and how were the drills. By constantly evaluating, Blashill ensures he and his staff are helping their players as best they can.

“One of the things we do after every practice is we grab lunch and talk about the practice. What did we like? What didn’t we like? How did we do at our job? Did we do a good enough job giving our players a chance to get better, or were our players confused? We banter about that. Did we work? Did we compete? Was our attention to detail good? We talk about it all.”

Allen Iverson may not have been a fan of talking about practice, but Blashill is and you will be too after watching his presentation.