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We actually had one of our top defensemen get sick with the flu, not C19, so we were a defenseman short yesterday for practice and I asked him if he wouldn't mind helping out on defense drills. We were doing a lot of corner/half-wall 2 vs 1 drills and also continuous shooting drills for defense from the point and forwards from the top of the circles. He played very well, but as mentioned, he always does well in practice. After practice finished I asked him how he felt playing defense and he said it was ok. He didn't seem overly enthusiastic. I am going to meet with his power skating coach late this afternoon, he does 1:1 sessions with him twice a week. Maybe he has some suggestions or the player has shared more with him than us.

@colins Agree, this is a delicate situation. And a lot depends on the kid. I know it was a blow to my son when he was asked to play D. Granted much younger than this young man, at an age where if you aren't scoring goals, are you really a hockey player? I exaggerate, but at the younger ages, most kids aren't thinking "how do I contribute to the team?", they are thinking "I want to score all the goals". But at least in my personal experience, he has taken to it pretty well and he has come to realize how to use his skill set within the context of the position. It is definitely a mindset shift though. Much less about the goals (as they don't come as often), and much more about the "play making" with and without the puck, winning the 1:1 battles and moving the puck to your guys.

Why is he playing up an age level? Even if he could arguably fit in if he found his confidence, he's 110% better off dominating/excelling at his own age level than just trying to fit in at the next level up. Also I think you need to somehow determine if his lack of confidence is fear of getting hit/hurt vs. fear of making a mistake / bad play. Both situations lead to loss of confidence but I think each needs a different strategy to overcome. So you somehow need to figure that out first. Parents might seem great in the rink but if the drive home in the car is a 20 minute review of all the mistakes he made that's a death spiral you can't pull them out of. They might think that's good feedback to help him work though it but it just has the opposite effect. But if I'm the kid's parents - I do whatever it takes to put him back with his age level.