Shot technique... yours or NHLers you've noticed

[Scotty 8]

I'm bored, so I decided to do a quick writeup on how different shot techniques can work for different people. The traditional ways aren't always the end all of ways to shoot.

Wrist/snap shots

I've always been a big wrister/snapper guy, and when I first started playing I did lots of reading books, reading magazines, etc about how to take the proper wrist shot. It preached the weight transfer from back to front foot, long sweeping motion of the puck, and finally a very long follow-through. I was able to do it that way for quite a while, but in the heat of the game you'll find that the textbook ways don't always work well because you have so little time or space. When I began studying videos and watching some players who were reknowned for having the best wrist and snap shots (Sakic, Hull, Modano, Shanahan, etc), I picked up little things they did. I didn't necessarily try to do it exactly their way or replicate it, but more so just take little things here or there. Mainly I saw that none of them had the textbook form of shooting.

Sakic, instead of your typical sweeping motion and keeping your top hand in close, prefers to launch both hands out straight very suddenly and then jerk his top hand back. Instead of keeping his shoulders upright, he would often turn his upper body perpendicular to the direction of the goal and drop his shoulder closest to the puck in order to facilitate the sudden snapping outward of both arms. He also buckles his knees at times and shoots off the wrong foot other times. His 95 flex stick is a small touch whippier than your standard NHL flex and aids a bit in his shot.

Hull developed his wrister during his early days in St. Louis and has a style all his own. Known for using perhaps one of the whippiest sticks in the league ever (anywhere from 65-80 flex game-used sticks of his have been seen), he prefers to let the shaft do large amounts of the work. Hull will often take his wristers off the wrong foot, so you'll see him raise his back leg, drop his bottom hand down to mid shaft in order to produce more torque (whereas wristers normally keep your hand up higher), use the heavily radiused toe curve of his blade to quickly toe drag the puck towards him, and then change the direction of his motion to whip the puck towards the net. Very tough technique to properly execute consistently, but he obviously has it perfected.

Shanahan uses a very stiff stick (I've heard his Easton Classic Aluminum shafts were 105-110 flex and the Warrior product manager says his newer Dolemite sticks are 110-120 flex), but still manages excellent wristers because he uses an explosive snapping motion. You'll normally see Shanny keep both feet on the ice at all times during shooting because his weight transfer and shooting motion are ridiculously explosive and compact. He almost never has any dragging motion on his wrist shots, for most of it is all a quick and violent snap. The puck normally doesn't stay in contact with his blade, as he'll often snap the blade forward from about a foot behind the puck and have a compact follow through with the toe of the blade up as opposed to the traditional down. Shanahan has said that he prefers to "rip through the puck" during his shot, as if it is merely a small obstacle in the way from his blade snapping from behind the puck through to his follow through on net.

What I took from all of these observations is that different techniques can play huge roles in how you shoot. Also, your blade curve and shaft flex can aid in your style once you get it down. I began adopting the wrong-footed wrist shot and although I still occasionally catch Hell for how it looks (the "donkey kick" as a previous teammate of mine called it), it has served me well and my wrist shot is now my trademark. I tend to take my wristers off the mid-toe section of my blade as opposed to rolling it the length of the blade as traditionally done.

All just little things you can do once you get a style down.

[Chadd 916]

You couldn't add this to one of the other 300 shooting topics?