Please Note: The Practice of the Week is usually designed to be utilized across multiple age levels. With that being said, we highly encourage you to adjust the drills based on your team's age and skill levels. These drills and practices can be modified to become more basic or more advanced.

Practice Theme: The drills in this practice are designed to help your players practice defensive zone concepts, skills, habits, and coverage.

Coaching Points:  

• Communicate: communicate with your teammates.
• Support: be ready to support your teammates if they need backup, or as a short passing outlet.
• Keep sticks on the ice: always keep your sticks on the ice in the d-zone so you can block passing lanes, angle, and poke check.  
• Angle: Angle offensive players to the boards, and away from the slot.
• Awareness: constantly scan the ice to be aware of where the puck, open space, and other players are.

D-Zone Coverage Examples:

• Protect The House - from Denis Savard
• Layered D-Zone Coverage - from Topher Scott