Connor Bedard: Toe Drag Manipulation
Connor Bedard showcased his swagger last night against the Islanders, where he scored a highlight reel goal along with his highlight reel celebration in the 1st period. It was an excellent goal from Bedard, where showcasing that skill is important, but more importantly maintaining that swagger is going to be something really important down the stretch. It will allow Bedard to continue to make highlight reel, dangerous plays with the puck to maneuver around opponents, and it can allow Bedard to make consistently high quality plays.
We all know how dynamic Bedard can be when it comes to using his puck skill in tight scenarios all over on the ice, but importantly, I seem to notice how when Bedard is at his best, he’s always looking to incorporate some degree of toe dragging into either his puck skills or his shot. When he is doing this and executing it in ways that allows him to One: Get Interior & Two: Toe Dragging to Get to the Next Space. Bedard showcases these two abilities that allow him to manipulate pressure and toe drag with more of a purpose attached to his puck skill. Sometimes, you see him dangling for the sake of dangling, whereas he when he is dangling with a purpose to get to the next space with his instincts, he becomes very dangerous.
What we see with Bedard on the sequence initially is how he manipulates D1 and D2 via the initial toe drag with the puck on his stick. Usually, Ds have a habit defending entries and defending in-zone defensively where they don’t typically like to stop on pucks, as they prefer to keep their feet moving and arch their route so they can try to swipe the puck free. It’s similar with forechecking forwards, where they prefer to stay on an arch and try to swipe the puck on an angle, very similar concept.
With Bedard, he does a great job initially reading the D1 and D2, drawing them to the middle and collapsing on him, and then toe dragging and maneuvering counter to the direction they want to. That strong side D is Ryan Pulock, a player typically pretty good defending interior, and defending on the PK. Pulock simply gets beat too easily here since he turned his feet and body to Bedard with too wide a gap, where Bedard easily takes advantage in tight with the puck.
Bedard toe drags around, and then with the puck slightly far in front of his body, Bedard has to adjust his angle if he chooses to get a shot off here. He does a great job doing that using multiple components:
Both hands extended away from his body, directly in front of him, top hand near level of his head
Rotates his core to align with his upper body
Back foot up, loading weight to front leg
Snaps the puck quickly with his bottom hand
Bedard has to adapt quickly with body positioning here, making a really good adjustment inside that core area on the shot release. That rotation in his core allows him to align and shape his upper body, which helps him get more accuracy on his shot, but not necessarily power. He doesn’t fully load the weight in his front leg, but he beats Sorokin clean by beating him moving across the crease, and beating him with Sorokin’s glove side moving slightly down to try and catch the puck.
Bedard beats Sorokin just above the glove, and does a great job beating Sorokin as he shifts into butterfly positioning as well.
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Hockey Analytics: 2024 Edition eBook
Guide to Scouting: 2023 Edition eBook
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