Please Note: The Practice of the Week is designed to bring value across multiple age levels. You can use this to build ideas to develop your own practice.  With that being said, we highly encourage you to adjust the drills based on your team's age and skill levels. IHS should always be used as a starting point and you can add/remove constraints to fit your team.

Practice Theme: Cutting the hands of the defender is a great way to invade their space which allows you to protect the puck and gives you space to make a play. Once a player has a step on the defender while driving to the net they need to take the defense's hands away by cutting to the inside. This takes away the angle where the defense can recover. If the offensive player uses their body to take away the defense's hands then they also eliminate the ability for the defense to go stick on puck.  This practice plan emphasizes using this skill in different situations with a focus on net drives.  It's also a great practice to work on defensive angling.  

3 Key Focus Points

1. Gain a Step on your Defender - work to gain a step on your defender by reading their angle and using speed or change of speed
2. Cut the hands of the defender - invade the defenders space by moving your body into the defenders hands to protect the puck and drive the net
3. Defensive Angling - Lead with your stick and take an angle that limits options for the attacking player and finish through their hands