4.1 - Pillar - Vision
Having good vision with the puck means you always know what is going on around you at all times. To accomplish this, you need to be making constant scans to read the pressure & your options (RPO).
Scan on First Touch
Get your eyes up within 1s of the puck touching your stick. Your first touch is typically either a pass reception or a loose puck retrieval. We want as little lag time as possible between first touch and eyes up.
Pre-Scan
Pre-scan by scanning or shoulder-checking before your first touch. When you are about to retrieve a loose puck or catch a pass, always try to pre-scan first.
Timing is also important here. Keep the pre-scan as close to the puck touch as possible. Ideally, we want to have a pre-scan within the 0-1s pre-touch time window before the puck touches our stick blade.
Scan as You Carry
Ideally, we play with our head up as much as possible. But it is ok to look at the puck. Not even the best NHL players can keep their head up 100% of the time when they have the puck. The key though, is to only look down at the puck for half-a-second before picking your eyes back up.
These are called micro-scans. A micro-scan is a quick glance down at the puck, then a quick glance back up around you to scan. As a general rule, you never want to be looking at the puck for more than one-second without scanning the ice.
Recap
Scan on first touch
Pre-scan before touch
Scan or micro-scan as you carry the puck