On November 15, we took what we learned from last skills practice on November 8, and built upon the foundation of cycling in more relevant situations that should help players recognize how and when they might use the cycle during an actual game.

Some observations:

• Players can now shift from rush to cycle, or enter into the offensive zone and immediately initiate a cycle. Many more reps will be required before this becomes instinctive enough for a real game
• Passing is becoming much crisper
• Player decisionmaking is also noticeably advancing
• Breakouts remain a big opportunity, will need to clean them up before we can incorporate a full progression from breakout to offensive cycle

Warm-up Drill: Passing in motion, with a shot

Last week, we performed a lot of stationary passing reps. This week, we’ll warm up passing in motion, but remembering the same fundamentals from last week: looking before passing, keeping arms away from the body, putting spin on the puck, following through to the target, and accepting the pass by cushioning.

Somewhere around the blue line (may be center line for more reps), the inside player will go for a shot, and the outside player will skate back hard to become the inside player for the awaiting next rep. This continuous drill will ensure players have reps on both their backhand and forehand, and gets the legs moving.

A few other variations may be covered (timing permitted):

• Passing players facing each other (one player skating backwards)
• Both players skating backwards (to mimic D-to-D passing)
• Head-man pass with criss-cross
• Drop pass with criss-cross

Drill #2: Continuous cycle, with pressure

Last week, we performed the continuous cycle drill and all players performed well and got a ton of reps – the whole point being muscle memory. This week, we’ll progress that drill by adding a coach to apply some pressure around each faceoff dot.

A coach applying pressure to the player with the puck around the hash marks helps practice puck protection, and emphasizes the need to put some distance on the cycle pass (rather than dropping in the immediate area which would be easy for a defender to pick off). It will also provide an added challenge to the return pass as the lane will be covered.

Drill #3: 3v2 with direct entry to cycle

Continuing to build off of our drills from the prior 2 weeks, we’ll resume our 3v2 drill with some important changes. Naturally, if there’s enough time and space to get a good shot off the rush, that is the best play to make. Often times during an actual game, the offensive zone may be contested too heavily, and the rushing players need another option.

In this drill, we introduce a variation on zone entry which involves a bank pass to the player with the most speed entering the zone. Then, we assume a highly contested zone, and the puck carrier will stop up or do a button-hook around the hash marks.

While this is happening, the opposite forward who is crashing the far post continues to skate as hard as they can toward the post. This effort is critical to setting up the cycle – the puck carrier’s stop up or button-hook is really just to buy a bit of extra time for the far winger to get into position.

Once the timing is right, the puck carrier will perform the first cycle pass by rimming the puck. The far winger proceeds beyond the far post, behind the net, to retrieve the rim pass and continue the cycle.

There will be a phase 2 to the drill with another puck from the coach, just for some extra cycling reps, and to practice the D-to-D pass and shot.

Drill #4: 5v2 to Cycle

Didn’t have enough time to explore the 5v2 well – will save for a future practice.

Drill #5: Puck Protection Tournament

Mini-tournament in 3 face-off circles where players try to protect their puck while knocking out all others. Tournament style with “finals” at center ice.