In this article, we’re going talk about how to break down a wrist shot and how to look at little features that are going to help make your wrist shot a lot harder, a lot more accurate, and way more powerful.
Hand Positioning on Our Stick
A couple of key components to a strong wrist shot are first of all figuring out where our hands should be on our stick. A lot of times you see players with their hands too close together on their stick or their hands way too far apart. We want to make sure that we get our hands correct. To do this, we’re going to put our stick either right beside our hips, so our one hand’s right on the end of our stick and we’re going to put our hands tight to our waist and get that distance. Or we can also put our stick up in the air and use our forearm to get that distance from our bottom hand to our top hand. But it’s very important for separation to not have our hands too tight.
When we’re talking about our hands, our top hand is going to be our control hand and that’s the hand that controls our blade, controls our stick. And our bottom hand is going to be our power hand. So, our top hand, we want to make sure that that elbow is up so we’re leading up, having that elbow up, and that bottom hand is going to be our power hand, it’s going to push on the shaft of our stick. The higher my hand comes up and the more my hand comes away from my body, the more power I can get generated on my shaft when I take that shot.
Shooting Box
Next, we’re going to take a look at our shooting box. And this is where we want the puck to be when we shoot the puck. So ideally, we want that puck close to our body and we want to make sure that we generate as much power as we can. To do that, we’re going to put our stick as tight to our foot as we can. If I’m a left-handed shot, I’m going to put it off my left foot. If I’m a right-hand shot, I’m going to put it off my right foot and then we’re going to bring it out about a blade length. This can be a bit of a grey area, but about a blade length out, and then up and down a blade length. And that’ll be our shooting box. This is the area that I want my shot to be taken in.
Whether I’m square to the puck, or I’m shooting the puck with my shoulders to the net, I want that puck in nice and tight to my body and that’s going to allow my top (control) hand to be up and allow me to get good leverage on my bottom (power) hand for the shot.
Puck Position on our Stick for a Wrist shot
The puck position on our stick for wrist shots is very important. We want to make sure that the puck begins at the heel of our blade and then rolls through the middle to toe. We want to try to not shoot the puck off the toe of our blade. A lot of times when we let the puck off the toe of our blade, the puck flutters, or gets a lot of power on our shot. So, as you can see, we want to go heel and then as we roll through it’s going to go to the middle and then we’re going to release that puck.
Puck Position in Shooting Box for a Wrist Shot
We want to position the puck starting at the back of our shooting box and then following through forward to the front of our shooting box to release that puck. A lot of times you see players that have the puck way too far back in their stance, or way too far out in their stance, or way too far out in front of their stance. And what happens in all those three positions: behind, on the side, or out in front, is we can’t flex our stick enough. So, we don’t get enough power on that shot to let a good shot go.
So again, we want to keep that top hand up, our blade in our shooting box, we slightly bring our stick back to the heel of our skate, and then we load it, and then transfer that weight.
Transferring your weight for a Wrist shot
Our main source of power on our shot is going to be from our legs. We do generate some power from our bottom hand pushing on the shaft of our stick, but again we need to have our knees bent and make sure that we’re generating force with our legs.
There is no such thing as a correct foot and a wrong foot. Players should learn how to shoot off of both feet to be able to become highly effective shooters and catch goalies off guard. At young ages, yes, we want players to learn how to transfer their weight. So, from their strong foot to their shooting foot which would be pushing off – let’s say I’m a left-handed shot – that would be me pushing from my left foot to my right foot. If I’m a right-handed shot – that would be pushing off my right foot to my left foot and following through.
You really want to make sure that players are pushing everything to the net. So, the bottom hand on their stick will be pushing down, their shoulders will be finishing at the net and they will follow through to the net. When players shoot off their incorrect foot, (for a left-handed shot that would be their left foot, for a right-handed shot, the right foot,) we tend to see them lean back a lot, so they end up finishing the shot and leaning back on the shot and then they take a lot of power off their shot. We want to make sure that players’ shoulders are moving forward as they follow through on the shot.
Finishing your Wrist Shot
When we finish our wrist shot and we want to make sure that we’re hitting a corner, or an area of the net, then what we want to do is make sure that we follow through. So, we want to make sure that our shoulders are driving towards the net and we’re going to aim with our bottom hand and the blade of our stick. If I’m following through on a wrist shot, I want to make sure that my bottom hand and my blade are going to where I want to shoot the puck. A lot of times you see players’ shoulders turn and rotate inside or rotate outside and then we see pucks missing the net left or missing the net right. We want to make sure that we follow through with our shoulder and our bottom hand to place that puck in the net where we want it.
Wrapping Up
I hope these tips have helped and if you’re going to work on your shot at home, I strongly recommend not having your pucks way far away from your body and sliding and shooting, sliding and shooting. Bring those pucks in tight and work off that shooting box, pushing on your bottom and keeping your top hand up. All those little points that we talked about, and that’s how you’re going to get your shot better. It is way better to shoot 100 pucks the correct way than 10,000 pucks the wrong way.
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