Hockey Tactics Quotes

The skill set for hockey is so specific to skating and if you haven't been skating as a kid it's impossible to play - and I wasn't a skater.

I watch a lot of hockey. There are some good hockey players and there are some awfully stupid hockey players.

I don't just want to be a drag-flicker. I want to be become a complete hockey player.

You can't get big in hockey. You need to be pliable... they've even taken fighting out of the game, so there's no more of those big huge guys who just fight.

Usually when you play a team, you want to focus on one line. Pittsburgh is the only team where you have to focus on one player [Mario Lemieux]. When he's coming toward you, all you see is him.

People talk about skating, puck handling and shooting, but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be directed, factoring in all the interruptions. Basically, my whole game is angles.

In the K.H.L., you're even more patient at your position because the rink is so big, you cannot play that way.

I was a really good ice hockey player when I was a kid. Now in the aftermath I think I wasn't maybe big enough, and I couldn't have put on enough muscle to actually be able to play with the better guys, but I was a really good skater.

Tremendous respect to hockey players. It's not easy every day, going out and getting hit, especially the goalies with all that padding on, that small puck, trying to track it - hand-eye co-ordination is a must. They're some amazing athletes.

Stanley Cup hockey comes around every year, when games start to count in multiples of best-of-seven series, and the players seem to put more attention into every pass, every check, every annoying little trick.

There are no good saves, there are only weak shots.

Obviously, you want to demand the puck; you want to have it as much as you can because you feel like good things can happen when it's on your stick.

Any time you give up two shorthanded goals, you're not usually going to win.

Whenever we got the chance to watch a game with my dad, it was like watching video with an NHL coach.

The space between keepers and defenders is referred to as the 'corridor of opportunity' - a well-hit pass in there has the goalie questioning whether to come into traffic and defenders unsure of whether or where to clear the ball.

You want to win hockey games, and it doesn't really matter how you do it.

I've been lucky to be surrounded by some good hockey minds.

The shoot-and-chase approach had become big in hockey. Teams would come up to the blue line and shoot the puck around our boards deep in our zone, then swarm in after it forechecking, trying to regain possession.

If you're putting the puck in an awkward place for someone, that's right away, advantage: you.

In hockey, sometimes a shift can go for a minute and a half, full out.

There are a lot more shots coming at the net and guys are just shooting it at the net because they have more time and pucks are going in off legs and feet and shoulders and heads, so you might have to play out a little further on the shot and hope it hits you.

If you're tanking to get a higher draft pick, you really shouldn't be playing hockey.

I watch a lot of tapes, a lot of games, all the replays. You watch the highlights on TV, those are all about goals getting scored or big saves. So you just look and see what guys do and how they're successful, and sometimes I see something and I go, Wow, that could work for me.