It’s pretty simple. We’re going to send out a daily post to update our fans, The ClutterPuckers, on anything Minnesota Hockey or hockey in general and we might sprinkle in some other fun things, too.
What do we have today? A Minnesota-born woman scored the 1st goal for PWHL Minnesota, World Junior Heartbreak, Wild Injuries just keep on coming and even more Daily Clutter!
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Is that a Women’s Puck?
That is a Very Important Puck!
The PWHL Minnesota Women’s Hockey team played their first game tonight in Boston and Minnesota’s Taylor Heise scored the first PWHL goal on American soil with a snipe past Boston’s Frankel! Yeah, that Taylor Heise who was the number one pick in the inaugural PWHL Draft who played for the Minnesota Gophers and who was born in Minnesota. The W on that puck above can pretty easily look like an M, a Gopher M, can’t it?
The 2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championships Quarterfinals were yesterday. Two games went into OVERTIME, another game was decided with 11 seconds left in regulation and…
Team USA beat Team Latvia 7-2 to advance to the Semifinals.
You’d think it’s been a long time since Canada didn’t at least play for a medal in the annual IIHF World Junior Championships but it was just 5 years ago but they’re always expected to be in the running for gold.
That’s a First Aid logo because the Minnesota Wild are dropping like flies!
They had to put D Jared Spurgeon back on IR with an undisclosed injury so they Recalled Daemon Hunt. The Minnesota Wild now have Fs Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello & Marcus Foligno and Ds Jonas Brodin & Jared Spurgeon out. Geez! That could be the number 1 Power Play unit!
Unfortunately, they aren’t getting most of those players back anytime soon. F Marcus Foligno wasn’t in yesterday’s game but there wasn’t really an update on what the injury was and if he’d be out for more than just that game.
They can’t worry about it…
Also… look at this Minnesota Wild player walking into the game yesterday. Hey! He has a lot of style. Someone asked, “Who was that player?…
It’s pretty simple. We’re going to send out a daily post to update our fans, The ClutterPuckers, on anything Minnesota Hockey or hockey in general and we might sprinkle in some other fun things, too.
Today we have share some Clutter on the beginning of the PWHL, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the 2024 Winter Classic and the Winter Classic in general and a little about NHL fines and why they are & kind of have to be so low!
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Minnesota Wild The Record: 16-15-4 (W-L-OTL); 36 points, 7th in NHL’s Central Division
The Minnesota Wild will try to get back to winning but will be without F Marcus Foligno as the injuries continue to pile up. F Sammy Walker was recalled from the Wild’s AHL Affiliate, the Iowa Wild.
There is now one league for the best female hockey players in the world and they started their inaugural season on New Year’s Day!
Attendance records were broken! A lot of firsts for the league happened (goal, win, shutout, etc…) The majority of the hockey community is doubting they’ll have much success but we hope they succeed in year one and beyond, especially in Minnesota. *Here’s something kind of funny. The PWHL had to go with thepwhl.com because PWHL.com was already taken by… Pigeon Wholesale Handmade Linens. The email for more info about their linens is… info@pwhl.com! Have they received a lot more email in the last few months? Is this a sponsor opportunity for the league? The Official Linens of the PWHL is the PWHL! BOOM! That just writes itself, people!
We are the State of Hockey so get out there and support your PWHL Minnesota team! Their home games will be played at the Xcel Energy Center and all games will be televised on Bally Sports North!
There are 5 different ticket prices ($19, $24, $34, $45 & $65) but, unfortunately, the main ticket seller is TicketMaster so you’re going to get screwed on fees.
Did you know that as the ticket prices go up, the fees go up too?
Who knew it was more work to serve someone buying more expensive tickets? It took me the same amount of time to select the higher-priced tickets as it did to select the lower-priced tickets so why is the service fee higher for the higher-priced tickets?
The PWHL Minnesota team plays their first ever game tomorrow night in Boston!
The Home Opener is on January 6th vs Montreal!
The PWHL Minnesota Home Opener is on January 6th at 2:30pm!
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The 2024 IIHF World Junior Championships entered the medal round:
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The 2024 NHL Winter Classic
The Winter Classic was in Seattle this year!
It’s a cool event, no pun intended, but we didn’t watch it. We can’t stand Vegas (don’t ask!) and we find it pretty sad that the NHL gives Seattle a Winter Classic in their 3rd season.
There are always great visuals:
There are 32 teams in the NHL and only two teams haven’t been in an outdoor game in either the Winter Classic, the Heritage Classis or a Stadium Series game. Those two teams… the Arizona Coyotes & the Columbus Blue Jackets. What do you think the fans of those two teams think of Seattle getting a Winter Classic in their 3rd season when they’ve been waiting since they began 17 years ago in 2008 to just play in an outdoor game?
Those teams haven’t been great over those 17 years. Arizona has made the playoffs just 4 times over that span and only once in the last 12 full seasons. They are in the thick of the battle to make it this season, though. Columbus? Just 6 times in 16 seasons and 3 straight seasons missing the dance.
Would anyone watch a Columbus vs Arizona Winter Classic or Stadium Series game other than those teams’ fans? Not likely. That and their lack of regular-season success are the major reasons they have yet to take the game outdoors.
It’s all about the ratings and the money, right? Show me something! Tell me why we should give you an outdoor game!
Many other teams have yet to host a Winter Classic or an outdoor game too. 11 teams have hosted a Winter Classic. The Boston Bruins have had three and played in 4. Chicago has hosted 1 and played in 4. Buffalo, Detroit, the New York Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis & Washington have hosted 1 & played in 2.
We won’t go through them but here’s the list of the Stadium Series games if you want to look at them. There have been 13 of them and there are 2 scheduled for February 17th & 18th at the New York Jets MetLife Stadium:
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Do NHL Fines Seem Too Low?
Minnesota Wild F Ryan Hartman was fined $4,427 for High-Sticking Winnipeg Jets F Cole Perfetti on Sunday afternoon.
Whenever a player gets fined, there are usually a few people who ask why the fine is so low. Their reason for thinking that is because the NHL has players making over $10M/season. There are 15 players to be exact but there are also players making as little as $756K* so they can only fine them so much. *As if $756K is a little, right? GEEZ! It would take 30 years to get to $750K if you made just $25K/year! Now, I’m sad! Keep working hard on whatever your dream is!
From the Department of Player Safety: “Players can be fined up to 50% of one day’s salary, up to a maximum of $10,000.00 for their first offense, and $15,000.00 for any subsequent offenses (the player had been fined in the 12 months before this fine).[1] Coaches, non-playing personnel, and teams are not restricted to such maximums, though they can still be treated as repeat offenders.” – The thoery of players repeatedly making these plays because the fines aren’t that much to them is debunked by the fine going up for subsequent offenses.
If you wondered where the money from fines goes: “Players’ money forfeited due to suspension or fine goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund, while money forfeited by coaches, staff or organizations as a whole goes to the NHL Foundation.”
Should fines be bases on a percentage of a player’s pay instead of half their daily cap hit?
Ryan Hartman’s salary this season is $2M. 1% of that is $20K so you start to understand why it’s based on their daily cap hit.
Kaprizov’s daily cap hit is $46.9K so he could be fined up to $10K because they set a maximum for any player since half of his cap hit is $23.45K.
Just an FYI since we’re talking about fines & money lost to bad plays. Here’s what a player loses for a suspension: “Non-repeat offenders lose salary based on the number of days in the season. For example, if there are 190 days in a season, a three game suspension would cost a non-repeat offender 3/190ths of his average salary.
Repeat offenders lose salary based on the number of games in a season (82). For example, a three game suspension would cost a repeat offender 3/82nds of his average salary.”
So… we’ll use Ryan Hartman’s contract as an example here too. His daily cap hit is $8,854 so a 3-game suspension if he were a non-repeat offender would cost him $26,562 but he is a repeat offender since he’s been suspended before so that means he would cost him $73,170.73!
It was also revealed yesterday by Winnipeg Jets F Cole Perfetti that Minnesota Wild F Ryan Hartman intentionally hit him with a high-stick as retaliation for the two cross-checks that Kirill Kaprizov took from Winnipeg Jets D Brendan Dillon:
Winnipeg's Cole Perfetti on Ryan Hartman's high-sticking fine: "He said, ‘No disrespect, nothing against you… it had to happen, something had to happen for what happened to Kaprizov there,' … That’s what he thought he needed to do to get back at us."https://t.co/70gaVrC090pic.twitter.com/rXBip8JuMy
That’s not a great look from Ryan Hartman but it also speaks to the bad officiating that resulted in no penalty called on two cross-checks to Kirill Kaprizov’s ribs and Kaprizov now being week-to-week:
What is The Daily Clutter you might ask or maybe you’re not?
It’s pretty simple. We’re going to send out a daily post to update our fans, The ClutterPuckers, on anything about Minnesota Hockey or hockey in general and we might sprinkle in some other things just for fun, too.
Hopefully, you’ll come along and enjoy what we do! #Poetic…
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Minnesota Wild The Record: 16-15-4 (W-L-OTL)- 36 points, 7th in NHL Central Division
G Marc-Andre Fleury’s 1,000th Game didn’t go well so he’s still 1 game away from tying G Patrick Roy for 2nd place in Career Regular Season Wins
Next Game: Tomorrow vs Calgary Flames at 7 pm on Bally Sports North
Calgary is 15-16-5 with 35 points & 4-4-2 in their last 10 games. The Wild need to get back to winning and hopefully, they watched some film of the 2 losses to Winnipeg and realized they got away from their game.
Unfortunately for the Minnesota Wild, the 2 losses over the weekend also came with 2 major losses on the ice. G Filip Gustavsson had to leave the game after the 2nd period on Saturday afternoon due to a lower-body injury. He’s now listed as week-to-week and was placed on Injured Reserve (IR) today. They recalled G Zane McIntyre from Iowa for Sunday’s game.
Minnesota Wild F Kirill Kaprizov was also injured in Saturday night’s game in Winnipeg. He was cross-checked in the ribs twice by Winnipeg Jets D Brendan Dillon. No call was made on either of them but Wild D Jake Middleton fought Dillon not long afterward. Pat “It was…” Maroon also dropped the gloves against Jets F Adam Lowry to start yesterday’s game. It makes you wonder why these fights need to happen and yes, they might happen anyway but if a call is made like it should be then maybe the cheap shots wouldn’t happen as often. Should the league & the Department of Player Safety fine any type of cross-check to a player’s ribs? Would it matter? The Minnesota Wild’s best player is now also listed as week-to-week and the player who injured him got off scott-free. It makes a lot of sense, right?
Officiating is far from easy but a lot of these missed calls are right in front of them. One infuriating thing is officials have different interpretations of what a penalty is or is not. There are way too many hits that don’t result in any call so the players feel they have to take it in their own hands to let the other team know it’s bad Clutter to hit like that.
This hit on Minnesota Wild F Marcus Johansson wasn’t called for anything so a Wild player had to do some talking with their fists. That player… “It was… Maroon.”
Fans of the offending player’s team are usually a good barometer on whether the hit is legal or not:
Pat Maroon drops the gloves with Parker Wotherspoon for having the audacity to make a clean shoulder check in the D Zone.
It was “a clean shoulder check” even though Wotherspoon left his feet, hit Johansson in the head and… oh yeah… the puck had yet to get to either player before the hit.
Minnesota Wild F Marco Rossi earned his first career Gordie Howe Hat Trick when he defended teammate Kirill Kaprizov after he was hammered into the boards by Montreal Canadiens D Kaiden Guhle and that sure looks like a boarding penalty, doesn’t it?
The Minnesota Wild are without D Jonas Brodin because of a similar situation. This hit wasn’t called for anything and Brodin has been out since December 9th.
The Department of Player Safety issued a Warning though. Yeah… that’ll take care of it!
@NHLPlayerSafety has reviewed this play, had a conversation with Evander Kane and Oilers GM Ken Holland, and this morning issued a warning to Kane. No suspension forthcoming. https://t.co/0h2p86vCr9
All of the Wild prospects in the Canadien Hockey League are doing very well with all of them averaging a point per game except D Kalem Parker. C Riley Heidt is averaging 2 points per game with 18 goals & 46 assists in 32 games for the Prince George Cougars. He’s currently at 68 points as he’s added 2 goals & 2 assists in the 2 games since the report came out.
2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championships
If you’re not familiar with this annual tournament of the best under-20-year-old players in the world, you are missing out.
The preliminary round wasn’t as exciting as we’re used to, especially for the USA team with a couple of their games being huge blowouts (11-3 over the Swiss & 10-2 over Slovakia). The quarterfinals of the medal rounds begin tomorrow morning. Team USA plays Latvia. Here’s the schedule for the rest of the tournament:
Three players in the tournament are Minnesota Wild prospects:
Forwards Servac Petrovsky (Slovakia), Rasmus Kumpulainen (Finland) & Liam Ohgren (Sweden) who is the team captain for Sweden.
There are also 4 Minnesota Gopher players on the Team USA team:
4 Gopher Hockey Players make the roster for the 2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championships – Fs Jimmy Snuggerud, Oliver Moore & Ds Ryan Chesley & Sam Rinzel
Speaking of the…
Minnesota Gophers
Overall Record: 9-5-4 (W-L-T)
Big Ten Record: 5-4-3-1-0 (W-L-T-OW-OL), 17 points, 3rd place in the Big Ten
2023-24 Big Ten Hockey Standings from College Hockey Inc.
The Minnesota Gophers need to start playing better and with more consistency after the holiday break. It’s easy to say this and we always forget these players are so young and it takes a while to adjust to Division I College Hockey.
They beat the USNTDP (US National Team Development Program) U18 team today by a score of 3-2.
They start the stretch run on January 7th & 8th for a rare Sunday & Monday home series vs the Colorado College Tigers. Both games will air on FOX9+ & Big Ten+ with Sunday’s game at 5 pm & Monday’s game at 7 pm.
The Minnesota Wild took on the Detroit Red Wings tonight. They also wore their 78s jerseys or their alternate throwback uniforms so it looked like a game from 1978 within the Wales Conference or from the early 80s in the old Norris Division.
Detroit is in a similar position that the Minnesota Wild are in, just outside of the playoffs but within reach of the final playoff spot. The big difference is in how they got to that position. Detroit signed F Patrick Kane on November 29th and he played his 1st game as a Red Wing on December 7th. He’s played in 10 games and Detroit is 2-7-1 in those games. The Wild are 7-3-0 in their last 10 games and are just 3 points out of the last playoff spot because Arizona would win the tiebreakers.
The Minnesota Wild were looking to continue their winning ways. Did they extend their home winning streak to 7 games and their overall winning streak to 4 games?
Let’s find out. Enough words. Let’s…
Drop the ClutterPuck!!!
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Here’s how the teams lined up:
Minnesota Wild
Status Report
Spurgeon, a defenseman, skated with the group but will not play. … Hartman returns after missing two games with an upper-body injury.
Detroit Red Wings
Status Report
Maata, a defenseman, will miss a second straight game. … Fischer was placed on injured reserve Tuesday. … Berggren, Czarnik and Edvinsson were each recalled from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League on Wednesday.
Game Recap
1st Period
Minnesota Wild F Ryan Hartman is back and he wears number 38 so the Wild celebrated by scoring 38 seconds into the game when Matt Boldy tried to tip in a Kirill Kaprizov pass into an open net. He didn’t get all of it but was easily able to put the rebound in for his 10th goal of the season. That might not be a good sign for the Red Wings since those two players are the hottest players for the Wild. We’ll see how hot they get.
0:38 – Goal – Minnesota – Matt Boldy (10) from Kirill Kaprizov (20) & Joel Eriksson Ek (10)
Boldy had a chance alone in front of the net 20 seconds into the game too but the puck rolled off of his stick then Detroit F David Perron fell down in the neutral zone which knocked Moritz Seider down and then slowed Perron down too. This allowed the Wild to go in 2-on-1 with Boldy also trailing the play. Detroit #96 D Jake Walman thought the best play he could make was to go to the puck and leave Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy alone in front of his goalie while Perron & Seider coasted for at least 3 seconds while Kaprizov and Boldy tried to get the puck past G James Reimer then they decide to try to break up the play. It might be a long film session tomorrow, boys! That’s some offensive defense right there!
Let’s just say you should never be coasting while you’re backchecking. They did have the best view of the goal though! Buy a Ticket next time!
Detroit 0 | 1 Minnesota 0:38 of the 1st Period
The Wild continued to dominate and had a Marco Rossi breakaway but didn’t increase their 1-goal lead so a defensive breakdown allowed F Patrick Kane, who has scored 20+ goals in all but one of his 17 seasons in the National Hockey League, to get behind the defense for a breakaway to tie the game at 1!
6:32 – Goal – Detroit – Patrick Kane (6) from Alex DeBrincat (18)
Minnesota Wild D Zach Bogosian had to hustle to get to the puck in the neutral zone to keep Patrick Kane from getting to it first but Bogosian just threw the puck up the boards and Detroit F Alex DeBrincat got to it before anyone else and Bogo made the mistake of watching the puck instead of keeping an eye on Kane who skated behind him then skated parallel to the blue line to make himself available for a pass so he could go in alone on Wild G Filip Gustavsson who he beat to the short side just over his right pad.
Detroit 1 | 1 Minnesota 6:32 of the 1st Period
The whole Wild team was watching the puck on that goal. Is there some magic word coaches &/or teammates can say to get players to stop watching the puck?
Detroit had a couple more grade-A scoring chances but Gustavsson was up to the task on them.
15:24 – Penalty – Detroit – Ben Chiarot for Hooking Brandon Duhaime
The Wild needed to clean up their defense after that period. Well… both teams needed to do that, actually.
1:37 – Goal – Minnesota – Marcus Johansson (3) from Ryan Hartman & Marco Rossi Unassisted*
*How that goal can be unassisted is beyond us! Rossi broke up the pass & started the play then passed it to Hartman who drove the net. If neither of those things happen, the goal doesn’t happen!
Detroit was a little too aggressive with the puck at the top of the offensive zone with F Lucas Raymond choosing to hold the puck when it was 2-on-5 then trying a drop pass instead of passing across to the far wall. That drop pass quickly turned into a turnover with Wild F Marco Rossi getting to the loose puck and chipping it out of the zone then allowing linemate F Ryan Hartman to grab the loose puck and lead the rush. He had 2 forwards playing defense, J.T. Compher & Lucas Raymond. Compher was giving too big of a gap so Ryan Hartman took that space and used it to move to his left and go for the net. Raymond hesitated to go to Hartman** for some reason so he had to hustle to catch up to Hartman. Wild F Marco Rossi drove the net behind as both Detroit players went to defend Hartman so Marco was ready for the rebound but Detroit D Ben Chiarot lifted Rossi’s stick to keep him from getting to the rebound. J.T. Compher poked the puck back toward the blue line but Wild F Marcus Johansson was trailing the play so he had a pretty easy shot at the net since Ben Chiarot was now screening his goalie. **A lot of teams have a defensive trait to “Kill Plays Quickly” or “End Plays Quickly!” That means they want to stop the offense immediately or as quickly as possible! Check our Game Notes article for more on this topic.
That might be worse defense than the first goal!
16:54 – Penalty – Minnesota – Jon Merrill for Holding on the offensive zone
SKATE then push! Don’t grab or even just place your free hand on the player!
Minnesota Wild F Marco Rossi had a glorious chance off a great pass from Marcus Johansson in the waning seconds but Detroit G James Reimer made the save. OHHH!!!
3rd Period
1:28 – Penalty – Minnesota – Jake Middleton for Joining Dylan Larkin Should Larkin have received a Holding the Stick penalty as well?
He felt/saw Middleton’s stick on him so he clamped it down with his own stick so… Call It What You Want!
Great defensive sequence by Dakota Mermis on the Penalty Kill. He went into a puck battle in the corner and won the puck with some physicality (read CLUTTER) then made a poke check to clear the zone. His name does begin with a D! Unfortunately, seconds later the game was tied off an Alex DeBrincat one-timer.
Detroit 2 | 2 Minnesota 2:43 of the 3rd Period
Just shy of 2 minutes later, the Minnesota Wild made 2-3 great defensive plays to keep Detroit from getting a scoring chance including F Marcus Johansson who poke-checked the puck away from J.T. Compher to take a shot away then got the loose puck at the left half-wall and skated up the left side. Detroit D Moritz Seider decided to go for the puck instead of the body but Johansson chipped it by him then used his skating to create a 2-on-1 with Marco Rossi. Detroit F Lucas Raymond got back to cover Rossi but D Jake Walman didn’t go to Johansson and maybe he didn’t see Ryan Hartman trailing the play so he just tried to take away a pass to Rossi. Johansson passed it to Ryan Hartman and he shot the puck from the slot and scored his 10th goal of the season to quickly get the Wild their 1-goal lead back.
4:35 – Goal – Minnesota – Ryan Hartman (10) from Marcus Johansson & Zach Bogosian
Detroit 2 | 3 Minnesota 4:35 of the 3rd Period
Johansson battling through the check coming out of the zone made that goal happen.
The Minnesota Wild will take on the Winnipeg Jets twice this weekend with a home & home series starting in Winnipeg. Both games are set for 1pm on Bally Sports North. The Jets are 7-1-2 (W-L-OTL) over their last 10 games so this will be an interesting weekend as we’ll see two of the hottest teams & division rivals battling it out all weekend long!
Game Notes from the Minnesota Wild vs the Vancouver Canucks on December 16th, 2023 * Do players not want to score goals anymore?
Does it seem there are way more players who like to pass than shoot?
As a former defenseman who didn’t score much (Damn Goalies!), I still don’t understand why it seems like coaches & teammates have to remind players to shoot the puck. Is there anything better than scoring a goal in hockey? Or in life for that matter?* They don’t interview the player who made the game-winning pass! *Yes! There are things better than scoring a goal in life!
Some players do seem to enjoy passing more than shooting for some reason. Is it the feeling they get from setting up their teammates and helping them score goals? It’s probably a stretch to call it a big problem but players should know when it’s better to shoot than pass most of the time. There have been times where I’ve thought a player should shoot and they passed for an easier goal and maybe that’s just me being more of a shooter than a passer. It would be difficult for me to have the chances described in the first 5 minutes of this game and not take the shot on both of them.
The biggest reason this bothers me is because, like those two examples above, a shot never happened and it is extremely difficult to score a goal if you don’t shoot the puck.
So… if you get that chance, take the shot more often than not. This is a good life motto too. Bring The Clutter Every Day in Every Way!!!
** A New Voice in the Room
The Minnesota Wild played their 2nd home game in a stretch of 8 of 11 games at home. It’s a great chance for them to get back into the thick of the playoff race! They are now 7-2 since head coach John Hynes took over for Dean Evason. That includes allowing just 13 goals in those 9 games!
Confidence in their game has put this team back in the mix and they’re now getting results with points. Even if those points are coming in shootout wins, it’s still two points and that is all they want. They’re learning how to win again, something that every team has to re-learn every season because of changes to the roster. Rookies & or new players have to figure out what it takes to win in this league or on a new team. The education of how to win might take a while or happen fast depending on how many new players there are on the team and how the team’s culture is.
The strange thing about the 2023-24 Minnesota Wild is they had a training camp that focused on taking care of business so they’d be ready to start the season the right way. It didn’t work out that way because that start ended up with a coaching change. Injuries may have played a part in the bad start but this team is supposed to have the depth to deal with injuries and keep winning. So was it scheme changes that had the defense and penalty kill playing without confidence and giving up too many goals? The goalies are blamed but they are only as good as the team in front of them allows them to be. A goalie shouldn’t have to face a ton of grade-A scoring chances to help their team win.
Just look at how different this team looks now. They have confidence in their game and the system. That came from a few changes made by the new coaches but you also have to realize a coaching change gave every player a new life or a blank sheet (or space for you Swifties! HA!). It sucks to be a player when the coach isn’t high on your skills or your ability to play the way they want you to play. That makes it seem like a larger hill to climb or with more weight to carry up the same hill.
This game is hard enough to play with confidence. Take that confidence away and add worrying about making mistakes or thinking you have to be perfect and you see how that would cause hesitation and bad play. You can’t play scared. Coaches have to allow their players to play and make mistakes because failing is how you get better at anything. Early or easy success breeds laziness because you think you don’t have to work on your skills to get better or you think you don’t have to get better at all.
*** Stick Penalties – Change Your Instincts
One reason (of many) why coaches have gray or no hair!
Minnesota Wild F Mats Zuccarello took a hooking penalty at the end of the first period. With just one hand on his stick, he put his stick under the hands of Ilya Mikheyev & was called for hooking. He was trailing the play so he reached because he thought it was the only way to disrupt the play. Could he have skated harder to catch up to the player and avoided that reach? Yes. Probably. So how do you get players to know that and make that their second-nature response to that kind of a play instead of reaching? How long does it take to change instinctive reactions?
You have to build a new habit to change it so it’d have to be done in practice. Show them how to do it differently so they don’t have to reach. An interesting experiment would be to have any or all players watch one of their shifts or any player’s shifts and have them count how many times they would say “move your feet” or “skate” during that shift. One way that would probably work wonders is to have them practice playing without a stick so the only way they can defend is with their feet. They still have the use of their hands so you would whistle the drill dead if they reached and grabbed with their hands because it might be a penalty and that’s not good either.
The players have to do better at not making the same stupid stick penalties meaning Hooking, Slashing, Tripping, High-Sticking and Cross-Checking. Stick awareness should be taught early & often. Control your stick and move your feet. Don’t reach and stop skating. Don’t stop skating until you’re even with the player you’re trying to reach or defend.
Other Notes * The IIHF World Junior Championships are Here Once Again!
Or what we call… International Clutter!
It might be the Greatest Hockey Christmas Present we get Every Year!!!
This year’s roster has 4 Minnesota Gophers (2 defensemen & 2 forwards): #71 Ryan Chesley, #8 Sam Rinzel, #11 Oliver Moore & #81 Jimmy Snuggerud
Here’s the schedule with all games on the NHL Network again:
Next up:
The Minnesota Wild will try to get above .500 when they play the Pittsburgh Penguins to start a 2-game road trip on Monday night at 6pm on Bally Sports North!
