Reply To: Need Advice: Preparing to Play More Skilled Team

[DMan]

Update: One week from playing the much more skilled team I mentioned in the first post, tonight we played a team we should have beaten fairly easily but lost in overtime. We had a good week of practice leading up to the weekend, but had to bench our best goaltender for discipline problems and also took a lot of undisciplined penalties during the game that cost us greatly. Back-checking was altogether missing from our game and in general we played some pretty uninspired hockey, leading me to the biggest question of all:

How do you teach desire?

ps. You might consider investing in Sierra Nevada brewing company…..their sales are going up rapidly as a direct result of the game described above.
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Dman, it sounds like your players made the biggest mistake or all which is to "underestimate your opponent." I watched the Flames beat Chicago 7-2 a few weeks ago and you see it happen all the time. It is a real challenge to get yourself up for a lesser opponent.

As far as playing star players who win a lot of 1-1's I find the key is to back pressure the puck carrier with F1 and have F2 pick up the trailer. That way you create a defensive 2-1 and if they don't like to pass it works well.
Tom