Nick Suzuki:
-Captain of the @CanadiensMTL
-101 points in the regular season, 6th in the NHL
-First round draft pick
-Team Canada Olympian
Puts his body in front of a Kucherov one-timer to seal the series. When your best players do this, you win.
COACHES: One of the most underrated skills to work on with your players:
TIMING.
As a coach, how many rush drills do you do where the player trailing on the weakside goes TOO FAST? Especially when you throw in a delay or a Gretzky escape for the puck carrier.
I do a lot of those drills and so many times the pass made to the trailer is in their feet or behind them because they're too far ahead of the seam.
This is such a great clip to show your players on this concept.
Watch EDM defenseman Ty Emberson who ends up scoring the goal. When the transition out of the Dzone starts, he bursts up the ice. But then he reads the rush, SLOOOOOWS DOWN, and hits the right spot at the right time to receive the pass across the ice. He then snipes getting rewarded for the goal.
In a hockey world that plays fast, sometimes great hockey sense will tell you to slow down. Great clip and a great teaching point in your practices and video sessions!
Add me to the growing group appreciating Mark Stone even more than I already did. The goal was nice, but he makes so many smart plays with puck.
Teammates would be lining up to play with him, even at this level, which is the ultimate compliment.
“If you are not good at tracking on the backcheck, you will not play high level hockey.”
The game today is all about transition. As a young player, learn how to value the backcheck.
COACHES: This is a teaching clip you see at the higher levels of the game a ton on the importance of the discipline of F3. So many times you'll see F3 not reading the first two forwards low and screaming down too aggressively giving the opponent an odd-man rush the other way.
On this clip, Washington's F3 shows discipline and patience, backing out knowing the first two forwards were caught low. This diminishes the opportunity for an odd-man rush and takes away good ice in the middle of the rink leading to no passing lanes.
The Ducks end up turning the puck over and Sourdif the F3 gets rewarded with the goal. A talked about a ton at the higher levels of the game and a great teaching clip for F3!!
Following up on this as there’s some discourse saying everything’s fine in Canada and if they had the likes of Celebrini and a few other NHLers they would have won and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
And they’re right. Canada would’ve had a much better shot at gold if they had their full arsenal to work with.
But two things can be true at the same time. I feel like that argument is just putting lipstick on a pig.
Every year Canada is missing top players. Yet in its history they’ve still fared way better than this 3 year stretch where they haven’t played in the championship game. It’s not just about this year. It’s about the big picture and what could be ahead if things stay the same.
I also don’t think we should judge a country’s development model solely on how they do in best-on-best competition. It’s a part of it for sure, but there are other things like growth and retention rates and other metrics that tell a more complete story.
If you think that everything is fine in Canada because the best players weren’t at World Juniors, I don’t think you’re looking deep enough at the systemic failure of the youth hockey model in the country.
Literally tens of thousands of less boys playing the game than a decade ago. Costs out of control. Winning over development. Super teams over TEAM teams. Ego over process. Fast track over patience.
We’re taught to look at process over result. So let’s forget about the result of World Juniors. Do you think the way youth hockey is delivered is the right process?
Every elite player I know has one thing in common.
They LOVE the game.
Do you think that the youth hockey experience is growing a love for the game more today than when you played? With the amount of pressure that is being put on kids and their families to dive into the crazy younger and younger every year?
I get messages from parents and coaches daily. We collaborate with a ton of youth organizations. The stress and FOMO is real. And the membership numbers are hard data to back it up.
The issues are real. Results aside, it’s imperative that hard conversations need to be had about youth hockey in the country. For better results in competition. For better development. For better mental health for the kids. And for the game we all love.