Puck Protection Skill Drill

By: Alex Tanguay

Alex Tanguay explains a simple but effective drill to practice puck protection concepts.

Setup

• Coach at face-off circle inside the zone with pucks.
• Players lined up at the neutral zone face-off dots.
• On the whistle, the player skates full speed at the coach. The coach gives the player a puck back and the player fakes that they are going to the outside and they go inside to the hash-mark, then curl back to the hash-mark at the half wall, and then curl back towards the slot and take a shot.
• The coach applies pressure during the whole drill, and the player practices protecting the puck and keeping it to the outside.

Coaching Points

• Players should keep puck to the outside and use their body to protect the puck.
• Players should not over stickhandle the puck. In many situations less stickhandling is better because you can skate faster.

Variations

• Can set this up in one corner or all 4 corners of the ice. If you set up in all 4 corners you must make sure that sides go at different times so goalies have time to reset between shots.
• Can have the player that just finished the drill, go to the face-off dot and be the "coach" that is applying pressure. After they are finished being the "coach" that applies pressure, they can get back in the forward line.