You wait.

Your puppy tries to chew on the couch.

He gets whomped.

Eventually, the puppy equates the whomp on the shnozz with chewing on the couch, and stops the chewing.

And yet, some, crazy, brainless anomalies out there (chocolate labs?), never seem to get it. Chew.  Whomp. Chew. Whomp. Chew. They keep coming back for more, with the "chew" always being the last word in the tedious game of chew and whomp.

If you understand what I'm talking about, you understand how shot blockers are born.

Nobody has a particularly hard shot until they get into the 13-year-old range. When you get hit with a slapper at that age, it's usually on the ice and not that scary.

When you hit 15, however, some guys can really bomb it. At some point, you get in the lane of a slapshot, and it hits you in the ankle. And it freakin' hurts.

The next week, another guy is taking a slapshot. You get in the lane like a good defensive player should, and it freakin' hurts again.

The following week, a guy is taking a slapshot. Because you're not an idiot, you "clear the lane to let the goalie see the puck" — a nice euphemism for "that freakin' hurts, and I'm not an idiot."

In reality, every team wants those chocolate labs. The guys who continue to put their well-being on the line, coming back for more, putting muscle and bone in front of frozen rubber that's as hard as concrete. He just so badly doesn't want your opponent to score. On your team, you always want the guy that makes fans think, "I'm not sure if he's an idiot or not, but we love that he's on our side." 

(You want him on the ice, not as a stallmate).

Our sport naturally seems to find the chocolate labs in youth programs, and start to teach them real skills. They learn to come from the inside-out, to make sure that the shot comes from a worse angle (to elaborate, when the defenseman first gets the puck, the forward trying to block the shot should immediately move to get between the net and puck before making a move in the direction of the defenseman).

They learn to slide on the ice so they cover an area six feet wide instead of the thickness of their legs. They learn when not to slide (i.e., when the defenseman has offensive talent; don't slide on Duncan Keith, Matt Carle or Alex Goligoski, because you'll get walked around). They tuck in their chins and time their slide right. Lo and behold, we now have an NHL penalty-killer.

A good shot blocker (Brendan Witt comes to mind, or a pioneer like Craig Ludwig) can block as many as seven or eight shots a game, vastly cutting down his opponents' chances, and taking the stress off your goaltender.

But then there's the fine line:

A player has been taught to "keep chewing." He's a guy who keeps coming back for more, and will do anything to block a shot. But how far is too far?

On talented defenseman, like the aforementioned Duncan Keith and crew, you don't go down because they're too mobile. So to block more of the lane, you can open up your skate so it's longer.  This also opens up the least-protected, most vulnerable part of your foot and ankle to injury.

My captain in college, Charlie Kronschnabel, blocked more shots with his inner ankle than I blocked in total during our four years, but he also missed a half-dozen games by breaking said ankle. (After he broke it the first time, he kept killing the penalty on one foot, eventually succeeding in icing the puck).

Trent McCleary of the Montreal Canadiens collapsed his trachea by sliding to stop a shot that hit him in the throat. Shot-blockers regularly get hit in bad places.

It's a tough man's game, and tough people succeed. General managers want and need men who aren't afraid.

So it needs to be said that the people who make the NHL as defensive specialists, the hard-working, penalty-killing shot-blockers of the league, deserve at least as much praise as the fancy-pants goal scoring crew. The Jack Russells, if you will.

Keep that in mind when you're learning the game, when your kid is learning the game, or, say, you're picking a dog. 

Persistence is a lovable, necessary trait, but in the end, what's it gonna be? Fetching and fun, or bites and bruises?

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If you can learn to get down quick and get those shinpads on the puck before the puck gets on net, you'll certainly be seeing more ice. I did a good amount of it while playing; and some guys I played with built a (good) reputation on it. What a relief to see a puck get deflected out of your zone when you're up by 1 with the 3rd winding down, or any other situation where you need the other guys to not score. If I'm a coach, and we're in that situation, I'm fairly confident I know who I need out there...

SDC , December 23, 2009

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I love to watch guys block shots - so exciting when the team is trying to hold on to a slim lead! Greg Zanon is a total chocolate lab (but a very intelligent one!) he just keeps coming back for more and has quickly proven to be a good addition to the Wild defense. He's been hurt in a few games this season and seems to only be in the locker room long enough to stitch him up, wipe off the blood and he's back on the ice. A MN Wild blooger recently called him a cyborg - that cracked me up!

minesotagirl71 , December 26, 2009

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