Know where the puck is going

Deciphering Wayne Gretzky's classic quote

We all remember that famous Wayne Gretzky quote: “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.”

The Great One’s advice is tough to decipher. We can’t know where the puck will end up on a 200ft x 85ft sheet of ice, after all.

The solution is to guess.

Guessing often enough, over a long enough period of time, cultivates experience. If you want to become a great hockey player, you’ll guess wrong, a lot. But it’s an important part of learning the game.

The best way to make better guesses is to be proactive rather than reactive. To influence the run of play.

The best way to do that is by touching the puck.

At the Intersection of Puck Management

Touching the puck, even for an instant, means that every other skater is reacting to you. It means that, for a moment, you get to decide what everyone is doing for the next few seconds.

Once the puck is off your stick, you’ll still need to guess where it’s going next. But it won’t feel like as much of a guess.

This is why the most offensively prolific players on the planet look to touch the puck 35-50 times a game, even if most of those touches will not result in a goal.

In addition, touching the puck multiple times on the same possession dramatically increases your odds of generating a scoring chance. Defensive structures decay over time when the offense is successful in moving the puck. Your first touch in a sequence will likely be contested, in traffic, difficult. On a third or fourth puck, you’ll be in the slot and possibly be looking at an empty net.

Here are two examples from last night. One from a player who’s getting better at leverage multi-puck possessions, and one from a player who’s a Grandmaster.