Coaching & Playing Lessons from Martin St. Louis
Learning coaching and playing lesson from Hall-of-Famer Marty St. Louis
On our Hockey IQ Podcast, we interviewed Hall-of-Fame player Martin St. Louis. While we all know him as a legendary player, he’s also an elite youth coach since his retirement. His son Ryan St. Louis is currently developing at the US National Team Development Program.
Dan and I received excellent feedback on the episode. Below is a sampling of some of the reviews:
Excellent listen. Worth every minute.
This is one of the best podcasts on hockey tactics ever recorded.
Listened to 100’s of Pods- this may be the best yet - well done.
The entire episode is packed with golden nuggets. We wanted to extract a few and talk about them.
Lesson #1
Players without the puck are more important than the player with the puck
Not many players can take players 1v1 - around 8%-10% - so the situation needs to have favorable conditions. These include finding ways to control skating, staying between coverage, and avoiding exposing the puck.
The player possessing the puck is the “servant” of his teammates. Always, in any situation. Why? Above all because this principle corresponds most fully to the idea of a collective game. - Anatoly Tarasov (Father of Russian hockey)
Lesson #2
Awareness of the game is the start of playing elite-level hockey
Marty outlines the things elite players hold in their mind while playing the game:
That list is pretty incredible. Personally, I can only hold where players are, their general momentum, and the handedness of the two nearest defenders.
Collecting this information is of vital importance for players to make and execute at high levels. This is something we’ve written about in the past. Read more about processing speed and slowing the perception of speed.
Lesson #3
A bad read is better than no read at all.
Following up playing hockey with intelligence and IQ, Marty talked about why he’s okay with mistakes and how it’s a part of the learning process. Players shouldn’t be hard on themselves as no one… including himself, he noted … has ever played a truly perfect game.
Lesson #4
Insert players into situations where they are forced to problem-solve.
At practice, Martin gives players problems to solve. He doesn’t stop there. He will send clips to his players and will ask players to explain the clips to him rather than just giving the answer to the players.
Coach Marty’s Practice Plan
Martin is a great wealth of knowledge. Here is a video about his pewee practice plan.
Video Notes
It’s on the player to push themselves to be the best they can be.
Stressing play without the puck - knowing your next play before the puck is on your stick and playing on the move.
Philosophy - Engagement + building passion + developing habits (E.g. compete).
Putting players in situations that they are forced to problem-solve.
Judging his team based on games where the other team might be a little better than his, not when playing teams that are worse.
Knowing how to play with the other four kids. Wiring the player so they aren’t good now, but good in the future and always.
Links to MSL Podcast
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen to our embedded player over on our website
Further Reading - Understanding how Auston Matthews has become one of the best defensive forwards
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