3 Drills for Defense Using the Reactive Sniper

Looking to build those defensive skills? You’ve come to the right place. All of these drills are done with only one product – the Reactive Sniper. The Reactive Sniper is one of our most customizable products. It’s unique features offer total versatility to work on any skills during your training session. 

Today we’re following along with Coach Jim from Vital Hockey Skills (IG: @vitalhockeyskills). He’s created these drills using the Reactive Sniper to put his  defensemen to the test.

For this drill, we are going to be working in the defensive zone. We’ll use the four colours on the Reactive Sniper to represent different reactions; yellow to represent a winger pass, blue to represent tight behind the net change in direction, green to represent going around the net and red to represent hitting the far winger. A puck will be dumped into the defensive end, skate after it, head up and react based on the colour shown on the Reactive Sniper once the puck has touched the back boards.

Next, we’ll focus on blue line management in the offensive zone. Start at the blue line in a ready stance. Similar to the first drill, each colour on the Reactive Sniper correlates to an action; green represents walking putting back to the winger, yellow means walking across the line and shooting from the middle, blue represents a half block charging to the top of the circle and red means putting the puck backdoor off of a blue line walk. The arrows on the Reactive Sniper indicate where to shoot on net if the colour correlates to a shooting option. You will need a partner for this drill.

This drill helps to show defensive neutral zone evasion tactics. The colours represent when to do the old PK Subban spin off. This time, ignore the arrows on the Reactive Sniper, there is no directional shooting. You're going to backpedal in the neutral zone with your head up & standing. The different coloured dots will be spread out in the neutral zone, this is how to know how far back you’re going. After backpedaling to the dot, come around and start making your way up the ice looking for passing lanes.

Knowing various options and tactics to use in both your end and the offensive end is key to being a strong defenseman. These drills will help build your skills and translate to real-game scenarios. Try them out for yourself and challenge your reaction time. Get training with the Reactive Sniper and start seeing improvements!

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