If you're not stealing ideas then you're not coaching.
When I sit down to break down game footage, I'm trying to find answers to questions that are holding my team back. It's not necessarily negative - how can we be better on the forecheck? What is preventing us from breaking out of the zone clean? What is team A doing that I can steal? So for me it starts with these questions.
One question I wanted to answer recently concerned how involved our goalies were on the breakout. It's one thing for me to communicate verbally with the goalies and the defencemen, but I wanted to find examples from the highest levels of the game and then incorporate that into our system.
I found NHL clips demonstrating the Dallas Stars goalies being involved in the breakout, and then tought my goalies and defencemen the calls required in each situation.
- Over: the puck travels behind the net, from the strong side to the weak side
- Up: the puck stays on one side, doesn't cross behind the net, and stays on the strong side
- Leave it: leave it alone or set it for the defenceman
After I showed these clips in practice, I used the drill below to reinforce those habits.
Goalie Breakout to Downhill Regroup 2on1
- Coach rims puck, goalie sets, D picks up and breaks out 2 forwards
- Progression: send D to either side of the net and work on goalie calls (Up, Over, Leave It)
- Forwards pass to D in neutral zone, middle forward gets pass downhill and turns up
- Breakout D gaps up and plays 2on1
