2024 MTL Development Camp Review
Overview & raw clips
In the past two days, I’ve attended the Montreal Canadiens’ Development Camp held in Brossard, QC.
It was an excellent opportunity to better understand the MTL Player Development department’s ever-evolving process and to steal some best practices that you can employ with your players.
In the first of a multi-part series, here are some of the themes of the two practice days
Click here for my Twitter recap thread with clips & brief notes.
In the next few days I’ll be doing a drill-by-drill video breakdown, as well as share one mind-blowing learning from Adam Nicholas’ innovative approach to drill design. In the meantime, here’s a very brief overview of what MTL did and didn’t do.
Format
9AM-10AM goalie session
11AM-12PM Fs & Ds on separate rinks - station drills, no goalies
12:15PM-12:45PM all players on same rink - small area games
No afternoon on-ice sessions
Focus
What I saw:
First touch on puck retrievals & rim collections
Puck protection & finding plays under pressure
Timing & quick-strike offense off bad pucks
Practice-to-game transfer of above skills
What I didn’t see:
(No rush play or rush defense drills)
(No isolation shooting or skating drills)
Ex: Boston Bruins
(No shot blocking or pure physicality drills)
(No systems/tactics/explicit style of play drills)
