Finders Keepers - Puck Protection Drill

By: Ice Hockey Systems

This drill has players working on puck protection and awareness. This is a good activity to use after working on puck skills and fundamentals so players can work on these skills in a competitive environment.

Depending on the size of your team you can use the neutral zone of one end from the blue line to the end boards. You will need half as many pucks as you have players. For example if we have 12 players then we will use 6 pucks. On the whistle the coach will shoot the pucks into the zone. The objective for the players is to find a puck and maintain puck possession. The coach will allow the players to go for 45 seconds to 1 minute. On the whistle the players must stop where they are. The players that do not have a puck have to do some sort of extra exercise like skate, push-ups, etc...

Players that have the most success will be playing with their head up and protecting the puck towards open ice. They will also use awareness to look for opportunities to steal pucks from other players.