Dusting It Off

What is wrong with dusting it off?

Not since the invention of the toe drag has a form of puckhandling been as maligned by old school hockey coaches as "dusting it off" has been in recent years. Are they right to complain?

To start, what is this "dusting it off" phrase even trying to describe?  It rests on a couple of concepts. The first is how the bristles on a brush that one may use to dust an object off bend during the brushing action. The best imagery may be an umpire dusting off home plate. The bristles bend back the opposite way from the direction in which they pull the brush (in other words, if the brush is being dragged to the right, the bristles bend back toward the left).

Now consider a hockey player that is doing quick little dribbles of the puck with proper wrist roll. As the player pulls their stick to the right, the stick blade is tilted such that the bottom of the stick is the part that lags the furthest behind to the left. So, if done quick enough, it sort of looks like the player is dusting the puck off with an imaginary brush on the bottom of their blade.

So, "dusting it off" is a way to describe doing quick little dribbles that make it seem like a silly habit. However, is it a silly habit?

There are a few ways to think about this.

1.  Consider what is called "cradling" in the sport of lacrosse. While controlling the ball in lacrosse, one could just let gravity do the work to hold the ball in the pouch of the lacrosse stick.  However, lacrosse players do not do this. Instead, they whip their stick back and forth to use the momentum of the ball for two purposes. First, this allows them to control it independent of the direction of gravity so they can protect it around their body. Second, it will enable them to feel the ball, so they know they have it.  Could both of these concepts help hockey players?

I would say, that using a rapid back and forth movement of the puck to prevent the loss of the puck as one protects the puck around their body is, at best, situational. There may be a few situations where quick dribbling action would is preferable in a puck protection situation, but, these are rare. The opposite tends to be more useful, and this is where "dangling" originates. More often, great puck-handlers position the puck in a protected spot and then move their stick away from it as they maneuver around an opponent before gathering it later.

The second idea (using rapid puck-handles to ensure constant feel of the puck) is probably the situation where "dusting it off" is most useful. Players can scan the rink with their eyes while holding the puck in a passing position and know they have it because they are getting good feedback on the feel of the puck on their stick from their dribbling action. They can feel secure that they have the puck by doing this.

2. However, this dribbling while scanning is often the thing that these coaches do not like. Usually, the sense that these coaches get is that dribbling after receiving a pass becomes a habit that these players cannot easily break. As a result, they wind up being slow to move the puck to the next open guy and the offensive attack (especially the power play) suffers.

This phenomenon is undoubtedly real. Some players do have a habit to resort to performing little dribbles after catching each pass. These players would benefit from being coached to "under-handle" the puck, position their body so they can receive a pass, and be immediately ready to make the next pass.

3. A third way to think about it is a balanced view that incorporates elements of points one and two above. Patrick Kane makes life difficult on goalies (especially in shootouts) where he does some of the fastest little dribbles hockey has ever seen only to wait for the goalie to commit and then beat him wherever a hole (sometimes a wide open net) opens up. Of course, this is an extreme case where he doesn't have to worry about taking a hit which makes that strategy more doable, but smaller scale versions of it still have their place in the normal flow of the game. Moreover, players who don't have an instant passing option on a power play will at times benefit from starting to dribble as they scan so they can confidently know that they have the puck while they prepare to pass.

However, some players are held back by too much reliance on dusting it off. A classic example for younger skaters is when they receive a pass in a shooting position and can't help but stickhandle before getting their shot off. The goalie has time to move and get set as a result, and a lot of potential goals are lost.

In short, it isn't the act of dusting it off that is inherently wrong. It is just that it can quickly become a habit that gets overused. We need to be vigilant as coaches to make sure that if they are doing it, it is to players' advantage and not holding them back!