Prepare to Create Opportunities

Every game is different. Some games are played at a blistering pace and others slow down to a defensive battle. Whichever type of game you find yourself in there will be a limited number of opportunities to make a play that will change the game. Being able to sniff out those opportunities is what separates great players from the pack.

We talked about settling into the flow of the game in a previous post. This is important, but if we sit in the flow without taking advantage of opportunities we are being useless. We have to be able to evaluate opportunities, pick our spot and then execute.

Picking your spot is identifying when your opponent is weak or slightly off their game. This can happen for a split second. A goalie drops to the butterfly too fast exposing the top of the net. A defensive player slides too early leaving his zone exposed. These create open windows that can be jumped through if we are able to recognize them

So how do we identify these windows? Here are some tips:

Pre-game preparation

Understanding your opponent before the game is a great way to recognize areas of opportunities. Watching and analyzing previous games gives us the ability to identify trends, tactics and tendencies of our opponent. From there, game plans can be developed to out perform the opponent.

Breaking a trend

Players and teams have certain trends that they continue to repeat from game to game. Hence why we talked about pre-game preparation. So what is a good way to throw a wrench into the opponents plan? Change the trend. If a team has been playing man to man defense consistently, maybe the next game you come up in a zone to get the opponent thinking. Now they are not prepared and opportunities will open up.

Be Unpredictable

Along the same lines of our first two examples, this is for in-game adjustments. Do not become predictable. Keep the opponent on their toes. Throw an aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck at them for the first 10 minutes and then drop back into a 1-2-2 and then go back at them. Changing the approach will cause the opponent to be uncomfortable. When players are uncomfortable, they make mistakes. Which then leads to opportunities for us.