Making sure your strengths don't create your weakness'

Couple of great saves from Jonas Hiller who's had a great start to his NHL career. Just thinking today about players development and the complexities that come into play as athletes look to add to their games. Ultimately the NHL level players are the ones that bring the most complete package of skills to the table. There is surly genetic reasons many of these athletes make it to this highest of levels, but this was also combined with a plan of skill development that was obviously well directed.

The idea of this post is to stress the importance of players understanding the need to become as complete a player as possible to give themselves the best chance to higher levels. One of the big obstacles that players face is not recognizing the need to address their weakness' until it's too late or their poor techniques become so ingrained that it's almost impossible to change them. To paint a picture about how this might happen, lets consider some of the challenges a goalie like Jonas Hiller might have faced. He's a big goalie, standing 6'2''. Not sure if he had a late growth spurt or was one of those kids that was 6' tall when he was 12 years old. Let's for a minute say he was that tall at 12, making him one of the largest goalie that his peers would play against. Could you envision him overly using this advantage and instead of working hard on his technical skating skills which may have been very weak. Instead of focusing on his biggest need most of his attention is on better using his size advantage.

In the real world this happens all the time and players that often times have success at a young level get sucked into believing they do not have to work on parts of their games that are deficient because of the present day success they are having. This also comes in play for coaches. They need to recognize the importance of overall skill development and be careful not to overly emphasize tactical training to win games today at the expense of giving their players the best chance to progress through the different playing levels.


To give you an example of traps forwards often fall into, think of the player that has the ability to skate and stickhandle around their opponents and seeming to always end up stickhandling by the goalie for most of their goals. This might be a ball to watch at the young ages, but the downside is that many of these players fail to work on their shots and as they get older beating your opponents on 1 v 1's becomes a rarity, even with the highest of skill sets. The other downside is that many of these great danglers of the puck often fail to develop a good understanding of how to use their teammates effectively.

The above examples are just possibilities and the challenges players face will always vary from player to player. These examples are used to challenge you to just consider the possibilities of them impeding a player's growth. Personally, I've witnessed those examples occur with numerous players from NHL players to mites. The big picture is recognizing the importance of developing all the skill sets and that also includes the social skill sets, as well. On a side note, I hope you noticed the RedWing defenseman making the slapshot pass down low for Hiller's second save. I liked the save, but loved seeing a defenseman who has the skill to take a little off his slapshot with his head seeing the target and not looking down at the puck. This is a skill that all D should work on and will create far more goals for your team, than the boomer from the blueline.

That one play, just exemplifies the reason the Redwings are the model program in the NHL. Starting with Steve Yzerman and continuing with the present team, they have built on a tradition of playing the game the right way. Their players get the fact that it's not about individual success, but winning as a team. Yzerman and gang figured it out long ago, it's not the amount of style points you get, it's the number of cups.