p91 to p28 feedbak and support

[getthekidthepuck 32]

Hey Guys,

I have been using a p91 for as long as I can recall. I just want to be able to buy sticks off the rack and not have to hunt them down. I bought a P28 CCM AS2 to try to switch over. Anybody successfully transition? Any feed back for technique ? Or how many skates I should give it? Any feedback is appreciated guys!

[Buzz_LightBeer 969]

I was always of the opinion that the P91 and P28 were of similar lie, length and shape, that the toe curve was the only adjustment. Not too difficult

[getthekidthepuck 32]

1 minute ago, Buzz_LightBeer said:

I was always of the opinion that the P91 and P28 were of similar lie, length and shape, that the toe curve was the only adjustment. Not too difficult

can you sauce the puck with p28 like a p91?

[flip12 712]

1 hour ago, getthekidthepuck said:

can you sauce the puck with p28 like a p91?

P28 is a modified P91, so yes, saucer passes are quite easy with one caveat: because the toe got shaved to make the pocket feel tighter on pick and fling wrist shots, you have to release before you reach that last 3rd of the blade. A lot of people naturally want to release the puck around that spot, where the "dual-lie" toe rocker starts which causes the puck to flutter. Otherwise, it's the same blade face and a similar heel curve on the P28. It just warps a bit into a mid curve until the toe curve starts due to the gravitational warping created by adding a toe curve to a P91.

[getthekidthepuck 32]

25 minutes ago, flip12 said:

P28 is a modified P91, so yes, saucer passes are quite easy with one caveat: because the toe got shaved to make the pocket feel tighter on pick and fling wrist shots, you have to release before you reach that last 3rd of the blade. A lot of people naturally want to release the puck around that spot, where the "dual-lie" toe rocker starts which causes the puck to flutter. Otherwise, it's the same blade face and a similar heel curve on the P28. It just warps a bit into a mid curve until the toe curve starts due to the gravitational warping created by adding a toe curve to a P91.

this is great info thank you very much. How long do you think i should test for before I can make up my mind?

[Cavs019 708]

Not disagreeing with any of the above, but...

It’s easier to go to a P92 imo. The P28 toe is an absolute beast and you really can’t play with the puck on the heel/shoot off the heel because it’s completely straight and closed relative to the P92 and P91.

Just my personal experience. After giving the P92 some time after using the P91 and P106 forever I’ve really come around to liking it - and can appreciate why it’s the most popular curve on the planet. It does everything well. 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Cavs019

[flip12 712]

39 minutes ago, Cavs019 said:

Not disagreeing with any of the above, but...

It’s easier to go to a P92 imo. The P28 toe is an absolute beast and you really can’t play with the puck on the heel/shoot off the heel because it’s completely straight and closed relative to the P92 and P91.

Just my personal experience. After giving the P92 some time after using the P91 and P106 forever I’ve really come around to liking it - and can appreciate why it’s the most popular curve on the planet. It does everything well. 

This hits it on the head, I think. Some people have this experience with the P28, and others find the heel curve of the P28 effective. In my opinion it comes down to whether the user can effectively use the blade as a two-in-one, with two different techniques or approaches depending on where the puck is on the blade. This is somewhat demanding of the user, as it requires solid feel and feedback or lots of looking at the blade, which doesn't really work. @Cavs019, I respect your views and often find myself in full agreement when I read your comments, however I must disagree with the description of the P28 being completely straight and closed relative to the P92 and P91, because to my observations it does curve right from the heel and the top of the blade doesn't curve in step with the bottom, creating considerable loft. It plays this way for me as well. I've encountered met many others who don't have the same experience using the blade though.

1 hour ago, getthekidthepuck said:

this is great info thank you very much. How long do you think i should test for before I can make up my mind?

I would suggest just trying out a buddy's P28 stick during warmup and on a shift or two. Try that a few sessions and see if it can work for you. Incidentally, I didn't discover the flutter effect personally using a P28, but a Leino Pro, which is essentially a Kovalev Pro x P28. It has both a very similar toe curve and that shaved heel portion where it's flatter like on the P28 or P91. I just went to a corner with 4-5 pucks and tried saucering them lightly, trying to get as much feedback from the puck on the stick as possible, and then it dawned on my why my saucer passes sucked: I was launching them just as the puck started to fall off the blade because of the aggressive toe rocker. I tried feeling for releasing a little sooner and suddenly I could lob tight slow saucers at head height. I would try that routine with a borrowed P28 to see if the technique settles in or not. I'd hold off on buying until doing that "test" a couple of times.

[getthekidthepuck 32]

21 minutes ago, flip12 said:

with two different techniques or approaches depending on where the puck is on the blade

Can you please elaborate on this?

[getthekidthepuck 32]

1 hour ago, Cavs019 said:

Not disagreeing with any of the above, but...

It’s easier to go to a P92 imo. The P28 toe is an absolute beast and you really can’t play with the puck on the heel/shoot off the heel because it’s completely straight and closed relative to the P92 and P91.

Just my personal experience. After giving the P92 some time after using the P91 and P106 forever I’ve really come around to liking it - and can appreciate why it’s the most popular curve on the planet. It does everything well. 

I decided to try the p28 because of the simliarties with the p91. Just by looking at a p92 it looks closer to the p91, IMO. I have CX e3 I could try too

[flip12 712]

17 minutes ago, getthekidthepuck said:

Can you please elaborate on this?

Absolutely.

I've already spilled the beans on that somewhat, and just realized that way of putting it after reading @Cavs019 description of his experiences with it as well as recalling what others have said about it, but I'll try to clarify it here.

Background: The P28 is a subtle curve, without even going into the depths of its half dozen relatively common variations: E28 and BC28 are kinkier than Bauer, CCM, or Warrior's P28, while True's TC4 is more of a cousin to those curves than a sibling...then of course, there's MAX variants that were starting to come out before Covid19 and the popular Fisher Pro used by Kucherov, Karlsson, maybe even Ekman-Larsson, among many others. It was introduced with a nod at this subtlety, the infamous "dual-lie" marketing campaign, which ended up being more of a tease than a fair representation of the blade's character.

What is all this subtlety then? Dual-lie is definitely one aspect, and potentially the trickiest. But it's also dual-curve. It's not a toe curve, but a heel curve with a toe curve added to it, and it can play like that: it can be a toe curve with the puck at the far end of the blade, or it can be a heel curve if you play as though the "dual" portion of the blade didn't exist. That is, you use it as a short blade with a heel curve and leave the toe curve and its sharp rocker out of the equation.

Practically speaking... All this means is, for pick and fling wrist shots, push the puck out to the toe, grab and release in one direct motion. But note! Here the inverse of the key to using it as a heel curve is true: to use it as a toe curve, ignore the heel curve portion of the blade, or about 2/3 of the surface you've got for handling the puck.

When it came time for me to try this out with the Leino the first time I used it, it felt really odd. I didn't know at all how to shoot at this point, mind you. But I had started seeing tips on how to do it on YouTube, so I figured I'd give it a go. It just felt strange to have the puck dangling out there at the end of this crazy long blade, ready to launch. It also looked strange, seeing all that blade I was bypassing, setting the puck up out as far as it could go. But then I launched my first shot and it went exactly where I had hoped it would. I wasn't used to my aim being any good, so I got giddy.

But there's the rub-- It can be too good to be true, and in my experience, it was for a good while. I could shoot off the toe and skate with the puck, but I couldn't really manipulate the puck reliably to evade defenders in tight space or make consistent passes. After giving it some more time, I got the stick balanced better for my hands' feeling-expectations and discovered the gotcha about not releasing the puck from its natural heel-to-toe launch zone, but instead go heel-to-mid and suddenly I had the best of both worlds: the effortless saucers of a heel curve and the effortless lasers of a rockered toe curve. It took me an excess of 15-20 sessions with the stick to figure it out, but eventually it clicked. And then when I tried these techniques out on an E28, it was pretty much the same, just on a shorter blade at a slightly higher lie.

Bananas split ~ Unfortunately, it doesn't work for everyone, and the point of all of this gets at why I think that is: it's hard managing a split personality, and the P28 is a split personality blade. The split personality requires awareness at all times, or you risk flubbing your maneuver entirely. The classic way to do this is to feel the puck on your stick without looking at it. If you can feel where it is on your stick, you can get it to the zone it needs to be in regardless of whether the heel approach or the toe approach is preferred in a given situation. You can also look at the puck, but it limits your effectiveness and it can get you into trouble really fast. If your feeling for the puck isn't as detailed as where it is currently and where it needs to be for the next action, you can easily get frustrated with the duality coming back to bite you. It's not all fun and games. Unless you like managing split personalities 🙂

Post mortem. Not that the P28 is dead. By all means, it looks as though it is here to stay for the next while, it's just not the latest and greatest anymore. When it came out, it seemed to create such a sensation, in part, I think because it seemed too pro to be readily available to mortals. That was my impression at least. Then the feedback and reviews came rolling in, and they were quite mixed. Where there had been so much marketing about a blade pattern(!) that promised to make you shoot like Ovechkin, people seemed to be somewhat caught off guard by the blade not always behaving. Easton hadn't told the whole story, and I keep coming across frustrated people who seem to have half of the information, in no small part due to the (at most) half of the story Easton told when they unleashed the E28.

! When was the last time that happened? It seemed totally crazy at the time, but that campaign looks like it set the stage for the marketing of the other blades that have come and gone (P46, P30) or are just having their moment as the IT blades right now (All MAX Everything, P90T+/-).

That's all I have to say about that.

[Cavs019 708]

@flip12 I don’t think you’re wrong at all and I’m probably chopping my words/explanation a bit. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that I tend to carry the puck in the mid-heel ish part of the blade (my first composite sticks were Modano/PM9s for the most part before I switched to Drury - wood Leetch/Lidstrom blades before all of that). At the way back of the heel the P28 is safe - mid heel you start to get into that weird twist/wedge part of the blade where unpredictable stuff starts to happen. At least for me that is. I also feel like the P28 wants you to carry the puck up by the toe and I just have a hard time unlearning the muscle memory of keeping the puck in the heel pocket for ~20 years. The 92 let’s me maintain the mechanics im comfortable with.

I’m sure if I gave it enough time I’d adapt but it’s too late in the game/im too washed up to try to teach myself new tricks. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Cavs019

[flip12 712]

3 hours ago, Cavs019 said:

@flip12 I don’t think you’re wrong at all and I’m probably chopping my words/explanation a bit. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that I tend to carry the puck in the mid-heel ish part of the blade (my first composite sticks were Modano/PM9s for the most part before I switched to Drury - wood Leetch/Lidstrom blades before all of that). At the way back of the heel the P28 is safe - mid heel you start to get into that weird twist/wedge part of the blade where unpredictable stuff starts to happen. At least for me that is. I also feel like the P28 wants you to carry the puck up by the toe and I just have a hard time unlearning the muscle memory of keeping the puck in the heel pocket for ~20 years. The 92 let’s me maintain the mechanics im comfortable with.

I’m sure if I gave it enough time I’d adapt but it’s too late in the game/im too washed up to try to teach myself new tricks. 

That weird twist wedge is exactly what can cause issues with that pattern. I agree with the relearning mechanics challenge too. Before posting that short story above I had a sentence or two about that in the section in the split personalities of the blade, but I tried to keep it down, as long as it already was.

[start_today 770]

On 1/26/2021 at 2:13 PM, getthekidthepuck said:

can you sauce the puck with p28 like a p91?

When I experimented with the p28, I could ONLY sauce the puck. ha Felt like I had to really focus to zip a firm flat pass on the ice.  

I’m sure working with it a little more I could have mastered it, but like others have said, it felt like I really had to pay attention to what I was doing. p88 lets me be comfortably mediocre without overthinking it. 

[Buzz_LightBeer 969]

On 1/26/2021 at 1:13 PM, getthekidthepuck said:

can you sauce the puck with p28 like a p91?

on the forehand, yes. on the backhand, less so