T’s Game

No updates for a couple weeks – here’s what happened:

T was sick twice over the last two weeks, so he missed two practices and last weekend’s game.  I was moving last weekend, so skipped last Monday’s clinic.  Likely going to skip the clinic tomorrow, too – it cuts into my time with my daughter, so I’ll likely only be going every other week.

Last week’s game, without T, was a 5-2 loss, making his team 1-1 to start the season.

Warm-up

T needs to learn that when he misses the puck during warm-ups he should not chase it all the way down to the other team’s goal-line.  Bad form.

Period 1 – Shift 1

His whole team was playing poorly today – very sluggish and lackadaisical.  T did have one nice play where he caught an opposing player coming into his zone – he put his body on him and forced him to turn, then managed to get a stick on the puck and knock it away.

Period 1 – shift 2

In his own zone he skated hard at an opposing player along the boards and took a good whack at the puck – he missed it entirely, but if he’d connected it would have scooted quite nicely out of the zone.  He did still manage to keep the other player from doing anything with it.

On offense, he’s got a bad habit of lagging behind the play.  In once instance today, he was keeping an eye on his left-wing who had the puck and he kept pace, but he was twenty feet behind the puck and not skating to catch up.  I need to get it through his head that he should try to be even with the player who has the puck so they can cross the blue-line together – that way he’ll be at the net for a rebound or a pass. 

In this shift and a later one, he got possession of the puck in his own zone and made a good decision.  He’s not fast and doesn’t handle the puck well, so skating it out would be hard for him, so I’ve told him to pass when this happens.  In both instances, he saw that passing out of the zone would be blocked by too many bodies, so he turned back, kept the puck and got it to a teammate to take out. 

Period 2 – shift 1

He’s doing better on face-offs – paying attention to the puck and moving toward it if necessary.  Unfortunately, the other team scored on this shift, so he’s back to –1.

Period 2 – shift 2

This is the other shift where he got control of the puck in his zone and made a smart decision about where to pass it.

The rest of the game was mostly uneventful for T, though not for the opposing team who won 2-0, making T’s team 1-2 for the season so far.  Coach had some comments in the locker room – mostly centering around the number of penalties and lack of passing.  Although he didn’t make the comparison, I did note that the number of good passes (5) was the same as the number of penalties (5) – I’m pretty sure this should be a different ratio …

T, though, is still doing well, I think.  Last season I kept telling him that his goal should be to just try and touch the puck every shift – this season he’s been doing that.  If not actually touching the puck, then touching the other player or challenging him enough to alter the play.