Recently, The Athletic’s Arpon Basu and Marc-Antoine Godin shared an in-depth conversation with new Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis about his tactical philosophy.
Aside from what players need to do during the game, AB, MAG and MSL also discussed practice design.
At St. Louis’ first practice with the Canadiens, he implemented something directly from his experience in youth hockey, which is to shrink the game. We have seen it often at practice: smaller area games, which force quicker decision-making, quicker information-processing.
It didn’t take long for him to realize coaching in the NHL and coaching in bantam requires an adjustment here.
“I like to shrink the game a lot in practice, and I need to figure out how much to shrink it because they’re big guys, and they’re fast. So the first day, I shrunk it too much. And I learned right away, it’s too tight,” he said. “I like to create mud, I call it, where there’s pressure or confusion. That’s the mud that I talk about. And when do you send the mud? In the rhythm of practice, when do you blow the whistle for the mud to get engaged?
“It’s different with the little kids because, here, they all get there faster. So I have to figure out the practice flow in terms of how I create my drill. It’s going to be the same concept, but I’ve got to figure out how to execute it, the pace of it, and how do I start. But I’m actually getting better every day at it.”
The way I see it, there are four types of drills coaches can mix-and-match to create a certain practice flow:
Full-rink, good ice (ex: flow drill with puck plays inside the dot lanes)
Full-rink, bad ice (ex: half-wall breakout & rush drill against defensive pressure)
Small-area, good ice (ex: OZ shooting from the slot)
Small-area, bad ice (ex: 1v1 corner battle)
Here are four drills/games (one of each type) I used with good results during a development week with the PHF’s Connecticut Whale.
Try them and let me know what you think!
Warmup: Catch & Shoot
Type: Small-area, good ice
Description:
Left-handed shooters on the left dot lane, right-handed shooters on the right dot lane vs. goalie
LH makes a lateral pass inside a weight shift
RH catches the puck inside a weight shift and then shoots the puck without stickhandling, landing on her inside foot (left foot for a righty)
Be sure to shoot before the faceoff dots
Optional: Flip the shooters to work on backhand catches and shots
Focus: Passing, reception and shooting inside a weight shift, goalie warmup
Angling: Through Hands
Type: Full-rink, bad ice
Description:
Pucks & half the group at the center-ice faceoff circle, remaining players on opposite corners of the blue line (this drill can be run on both sides at once)
Blue passes the puck to Grey, who skates down the boards at half-speed
Blue skates forward and angles Grey off, cutting through her hands and stealing the puck for a breakaway
Grey gets in line in the middle and Blue gets in line at the opposite blue line
Optional: Second puck for Blue to retrieve in the left OZ corner, get off wall, cut back, dead-angle shot on goalie
Focus: Forward skating to force the puck carrier wide, then using advantageous contact (hip vs. forearm) to force a turnover
Transition: Rush Offense vs. Trackers
Type: Full-rink, good ice
Description:
Coach spots a puck near center ice, Grey starts with a 1v0
Coach spots a second puck, Grey tracks hard against two Blue players, 2v1
Coach spots a third puck, Blue tracks hard against the original Grey player and two new Greys, 3v2
Optional: Add a fourth puck after the initial 3v2 play, and/or add a third Blue player to turn the last puck into a 3v3 in-zone
Focus: Rush offense/defense principles, work rate & conditioning
Small Area Game: Three Low, One High
Type: Small-area, bad/good ice
Description:
Split skaters into two or three teams (4-6 per team)
4v4 game, with three skaters on each team below the tops of the circles and one above
At any time, low players can rotate up and activate the high player (D)
A team can only score after D touches the puck below the tops of the circles (which forces the OZ rotation we are looking for)
Continue to play with the low-high player rotation until someone scores or until coach calls for a change
Keep score & reward winning team
Optional: Backhand passes only
Focus: OZ movement, getting off the wall, puck support, deception, contact, FUN
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