Smaller turnout today than normal at practice. I would say there were 20 people in attendance. Craig Custance from the AJC was there as well as a SportsSouth camera crew who did interviews in the locker room after practice. There was also another journalist there who I have not seen before. One of the PR guys talked to her and took her into the locker room for a tour. I heard her ask the PR guy which player was Kovy...
Moose and Ondrej were on the ice early with Darren Elliot taping some type of advertisement or video clip. After Moose and Ondrej went to start practicing Darren still continued to work with the video guys taking some shots on net.
As usual, Nik and Tobias were the first on the ice. They took turns taking breakaway shots on the goalies. It took quite awhile for one of the two D men to score on Ondrej. Finally after maybe 6 shots each Toby scored high glove side. Popovic came out and joined in. At one point Pops did a spin o rama on Moose and scored. Everyone laughed. Then, Moose took a breakaway shot on Ondrej and missed high glove side (missed the net actually). It was funny to see a goalie taking a breakaway/shootout shot on another goalie.
Something unusual then happened...Kovy/Hoss/Slava all came on the ice one after the other. It was one of the only times I remember those three guys coming out onto the ice before most of the other players. The entire first PP line came onto the ice early and did 15 minutes of PP practice time. One the ice was Kovy, Hoss, Slava, Tobias, and Holik was posted infront of the net. Kovy and Tobias rotated at the point. The goal of the drill appeared to be puck movement in the zone and then a shot on net with Holik either screening the goalie or deflecting the puck (rocket science, isn't it).
By 10 am the entire team was on the ice and they skated on the normal sheet for a short time then went to the other side of the practice facility to skate on the other sheet.
Once on the other side they worked a long time on a drill where the D men would dig the puck out of the corners behind their net and pass the puck out of the zone to a forward who then took the puck into the offensive zone. At that point they would either shoot or post a forward/center in front of the net for a deflection.
For some reason it seemed like Hoss and Slava were on the same pairing alot during this drill. Kovy was paired with Dupuis quite a bit as well. (not saying lines are changing, just an observation).
After 30 minutes the team switched back to the normal sheet of ice. During the transition Holik and Hoss talked to Holik's dad who was in attendance. They seemed to be having a pretty good long conversation although I could not understand what they were saying because it was not in english.
Once on the other sheet they did their normal 3 on 2 drill. McCrimmon almost immediately stopped the drill once on the other sheet because he and DW did not like what they were seeing. He huddled everyone together at mid ice along the boards and talked to them for a good 1-2 minutes. Then they went back out and started the drill again.
The practice ended with some of the players leaving the ice early. X was the first to leave which was unusual. The top PP line then again formed at the far end of the ice to do their PP drills/practice again. They practiced the PP again for another 10 minutes straight. The gist of the time seemed to be to have sharper and quicker passes, posting someone in front of the net minder, and getting deflections at net.
Observations
1. Tobias continues to impress with his skating and passing abilities. He is truly gifted in these areas.
2. Klee continues to work hard and seems to be comfortable with X. The two guys seem to compliment each others
game.
3. Kovy had fun today. He got alot of pucks in the net today during practice.
4. Hoss was hitting the net but not scoring as much as Kovy.
5. Slava, The Professor, did alot of taking to Kovy during the various drills.
6. Steve Weeks eye (that got hit with the puck a few weeks ago) is almost totally healed now.
Another practice post will be done after the practice this Friday
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Thanks for the information! Also I'm glad to hear that our top players had a good job on the ice. It's good that Kovy got a lot of pucks in the net. I hope he will get it in the game tonight too.
Thanks for the information! Also I'm glad to hear that our top players had a good job on the ice. It's good that Kovy got a lot of pucks in the net. I hope he will get it in the game tonight too.
Just some FYI, Igor Larionov is known as "The Professor", not Slava.
~Mr. Wright
Post a Comment