“It looks effortless when he’s doing it. And I think some of the best skaters in the world, they have that ability where they can be really moving, really skating but it doesn’t necessarily look like they’re exerting a lot of energy. It’s fluid the way that he does it. And he’s able to control the game with his skating. That’s the way the NHL is heading now.”
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These are the observations of Cam Fowler, an 11-year NHL veteran with over 700 games played, when watching 19-year-old Jamie Drysdale transitioning from offense to defense and back while finding an initial measure of success against some of hockey’s finest performers.
By the time he turns 20 next April, Drysdale essentially will have had a full year of action at the highest level. Over a six-week baptism this season it already became clear, in the way he easily navigated every inch of the ice and played with a poise well beyond his years, that he could become a bedrock of the Anaheim Ducks, a potential leader of their blue line who directs the flow of the game whenever he hops over the boards and takes possession of the puck.
Playing defense is a hard job. It can be physical and center around battles. But it can also be an art. It involves being able to read and react to what an opponent does and then own the ability to force a change in possession and then manage your team’s turn with the puck, speeding up the pace or slowing it down at an instant when the situation calls for either. Skating is the foundation of all that. The very best can make all that look easy, even when it’s decidedly not.
It makes someone with choppy strides marvel at the way Drysdale appears to float around the ice instead of slicing it up. One can expect someone like that to say how the teenager makes skating look effortless. Understandably so. Except Fowler is no plugger who is enamored with what he sees. He has built a lengthy career from the base of his exceptional skating ability.
“It’s fun to watch and it looks like something that he doesn’t have to think about,” Fowler told The Athletic. “He knows that it’s there. And he trusts it. He knows that’s how he’s going to be an effective player in this league for a long time. When he gets moving out there, watching from the bench is a fun thing to watch.”
Three summers ago, Dawn Braid took on a high pick in the Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection draft and some of his teammates with the AAA minor midget Toronto Marlboros. All were entering their rookie seasons in the OHL.
Drysdale, the fourth choice overall, sought out Braid for skating sessions as one part of his offseason training to prepare for his first year of major junior hockey with the Erie Otters. Braid, who has a lengthy list of clientele of NHL and other pro players, soon saw this 16-year-old wasn’t content with the strong foundation he had from working with other coaches.
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“We spoke with him about what he wanted to achieve from working with us,” said Braid, whose son, Mackenzie, is a co-instructor. “It was already an asset for him. He noted that he was already a strong skater but believe that it was something he could get better at. He always felt confident in his skating, and he wanted to continue to make sure it was one of his strengths.
“You have to commend him on that. He didn’t go, ‘I’m a great skater. I don’t need to work at this.’ He realized that it was an asset that helped him get to where he was and he wanted to continue to work on that strength.”
The two are continuing their skating sessions this summer. Braid, who in 2016 was hired by Arizona as the first female full-time coach in NHL, said she works with an individual client or a small group for an hour each week and that programs can run for 10 to 12 weeks, often from May until August. Clients can come in at different times depending on when a player’s season ends.
The time spent together is concentrated and focused, given that she can see up to 50 different NHL players during an offseason and over 100, including other pro and junior levels. A video coach shoots the sessions and Braid and her son often have the players looking at their form immediately so the client can see for themselves what sort of corrective measures are needed.
Those sessions can be detailed, meticulous and sometimes border on tedium. Repetition is paramount. Braid often breaks down a player’s form and talks about the biomechanics of having their ankles, knees and hips in correct alignment so that the kinetic chain of movement allows that player to skate faster and more efficiently. “It’s about building a strong foundation and it’s not always fun for the young kids,” she said.
With Drysdale, Braid notes how they explore “different body alignments and stuff. And angles. Being more stable.”
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“Anything that was going to generate more power and more stability for him to play at the next level,” she continued.
This is important stuff to Drysdale. He has an edge and it helped make him the second blue-liner selected in the 2020 draft and the sixth player overall. But it is now about maintaining that edge. This is, in his view, what is essential to continue improving as a player and maximizing his potential.
“I think it’s the same with everything,” said Drysdale, who was taken by the Ducks right after Ottawa selected Jake Sanderson. “If I were to stop now, stop working on it, everyone else is working on it and eventually people are going to continue to get better. I think that’s kind of what I’m looking at. Just to continue to improve so I can continue to excel.”
This is why he sought out Braid. She knows her stuff. Taylor Hall, John Tavares and Matthew Tkachuk can attest to her expertise. Scott Laughton remains a loyal disciple. Owen Power, the projected No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, has worked with her for years.
“Sometimes that’s why I want to say I’m not going to take credit for where Jamie is today,” said Braid, who has also worked in the past with Anaheim, Calgary, Buffalo and Toronto. “A lot of that is Jamie and putting in the work. We did some fine-tuning to make sure that he could reach his potential as an elite skater in the NHL. Not being comfortable just being an elite skater in junior.”
The Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club has origins in the early 19th century. Three individual athletic-focused establishments joined forces in 1957 to form the large club as it exists today, one that includes many other sporting and social programs. Classes are also offered in tennis, croquet, squash, lawn bowling, aquatics and fitness.
Figure skating has been a major draw for decades. Many Olympic and elite-level skaters have trained out of the expansive North York facility, but programs have always been available to kids who are beginners. Drysdale recalls being around age 8 and going there once or twice a week.
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“No equipment, no sticks, no nothing,” he said. “I just remember being with a bunch of my buddies. At the time, I think you’re just kind of doing it for fun. Doing spin-o-ramas. I think we were pretty much doing everything. A lot of edgework. Transitioning. Forwards to backward on one foot. A lot of one-foot skating. And they made it fun. A lot of fun, from what I remember.”
The stories of Drysdale starting the discipline that he became determined to master are familiar to Fowler. His parents, Perry and Bridget, put him in figure skating classes at Farmington Hills Ice Arena in suburban Detroit. Before he moved more into power skating at age 8, it was just “cruising around out there.”
But the roots of what might be his greatest asset were planted.
“I think I was probably around 5 years old,” Fowler said. “A lot of it’s pretty fuzzy. I remember some edge work. I think the biggest thing is getting comfortable on the ice and trusting your edges and your skating. I remember just working at it with the instructor and enjoying it.
“It was fun for me to learn something new and ended up falling in love with it. Kind of built it from there on. I think the early stuff and most importantly getting comfortable on the ice and understanding how to use your edges was important for me at a young age.”
When he starred in the NHL for 18 seasons, Scott Niedermayer was renowned for his skating. Combined with his talent and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, Niedermayer was a massive presence for four Stanley Cup-winning teams in New Jersey and Anaheim. He didn’t just patrol the blue line for nearly 30 minutes – or much more in playoff games. He controlled it.
It was his mother, Carol, who got him and his brother, Rob – who played concurrently for more than 1,150 games – into figure skating. As a former athlete, she taught power skating in their native Cranbrook, B.C., while getting free ice time as her salary. It was clear that the brothers were first and foremost hockey players, because they wore hockey skates in those classes. And their participation ended once the figure skaters moved into doing jumps.
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By then, Scott and Rob were driven to make skating a dominant trait in their games. Scott said he worked with famed coaches Audrey Bakewell and Laura Stamm, who are considered the grand dames of power skating. Niedermayer was an apt pupil.
“It took a while to really understand how to use it to the best sort of advantage in different situations in a hockey game,” he said. “Knowing when and how to use it is a big thing and a big difference to know and takes time to learn for sure.”
For Fowler, it was his work with Carrie Keil, the power skating coach for the U.S. National Team Development Program, that took something he was naturally good at into the next level.
“I remember it being pretty difficult,” Fowler said “A lot of it is the same sort of stuff as the figure skating. Working on your edges. Trying to utilize as much power as you can without exerting yourself. Understanding the glide and how to load into your legs and how to load on a particular side to go in a particular direction.
“And that was something that was also offered at the national team. (Carrie) really challenged me too. Pushed me hard. And that was something that I continue to work on.”
What makes Drysdale like other great skaters and what also sets him apart is something that has been coined “four-way skating ability.” It is the ability to not only move forward with sustained high pace but backward as well as heading from one side to the other with equal bursts.
But the way that Drysdale moves around the ice gives the appearance of someone so smooth in his movements that it seems as if he isn’t working very hard to cover the kind of ground that he does, whether it is closing the gap on an opposing player or joining the rush with his teammates on an offensive possession. Like he’s floating.
It can look effortless, as Fowler put it. “I know Scotty had that,” said the longtime Ducks defenseman, who entered the NHL right after Niedermayer retired.
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“When we talk effortless, a lot of times it will relate to a figure skater, right?” Braid said. “They skate with speed and they look so effortless. I don’t believe it’s effortless. There’s work that goes into that. When it comes down to it, it’s a lot to do with rhythm and timing and everything working for you the right way. When it’s all combined and it’s working right for you, it appears effortless, if that makes any sense.
“He’s working at it. And he might be feeling tired. But it doesn’t appear that way to the person, somebody that’s watching him.”
Niedermayer said hockey now is at “a different time,” one in which most players are always working on different skills and parts of their game, including the way individual skating and skills coaches have expanded on their knowledge and teaching to help players further enhance their abilities. He “sheepishly” admits that he didn’t do much of that after junior hockey.
It seems unfathomable that one of the greatest skaters in NHL history didn’t spend every offseason perfecting that craft. Except in his case, his skating was so natural, already perfect. Some would argue he was peerless.
“If everybody else was doing it, that may not have happened,” Niedermayer said, laughing. “I was lucky then. There weren’t many other people doing it.”
The element in skating that Drysdale uses to create separation from other players or quickly cut the space down in between is the crossover technique. It is a maneuver in which a skater crosses the outside skate over the other that is on the inside of the curve. Strong simultaneous edgework is required on the pushing and gliding skate. When repeated, it can allow the skater to gain momentum while skating in a curve or a circle pattern. And the move can be done forwards or backward.
It is a fundamental move in figure skating. It is a power move for Drysdale.
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“I think I generate most of my speed off crossovers, just up and down the ice,” he said. “I rely on them a lot. Whether it’s skating forwards or doing backward crossovers to close gaps quicker. To walk the (blue) line. I think they’re really helpful for me.”
Niedermayer believes it particularly helps a player in defending mode, because they’re often having to react to what an opposing player does. One can move immediately in a different direction when there isn’t much time to make an adjustment.
“It kind of allows a player to keep a wide range of options as to say where they’re looking or where they can make a play,” Niedermayer said. “It increases your agility. You don’t have to go through an extra step or an extra move to get somewhere. You can kind of just go from here to there and you’ve eliminated that extra step or two. That obviously is going to make a difference.”
Braid knew Drysdale was a strong skater and had quick, fast-twitch movement. What they wanted to hone in on was body positioning and alignment, and on improving stability.
“It’s about balancing everything out and getting a really strong base of support,” Braid said. “Centering his gravity whether the reaction to turns and transitions would be better. Because he already has good edge work.
“So, we took that along with the separation. The other main focus was getting more speed and pop from his crossovers and using them to his advantage. … Years ago, we wouldn’t have looked at crossovers in the same way. You wouldn’t have been able to utilize them. But the game has changed. That means changing how you teach skating.”
The game continues to speed up. One doesn’t have to be the fastest skater in order to have success at the highest level. But it doesn’t hurt to have an extra gear when needed.
“You want to be as powerful and as explosive as you can,” Drysdale said. “You see a guy like Nathan MacKinnon, for example, on the ice. Every stride he takes, he makes the most of it. He gets as much as each stride, each crossover that he can.
“Guys that you look at. You see how fast they are. How agile, explosive, things like that. It’s just things to look to be able to do. It’s definitely something I can work on. Need to work on.”
There are other fantastic skaters across the NHL. Connor McDavid, of course, is the quintessential example, the nonpareil. The acceleration in his stride reaches a speed few if any have ever skated at, coupled with the skill to make plays at full flight. Some, like Nathan MacKinnon, aren’t far behind.
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Does his own prowess make him want to take on MacKinnon in a future skating skills challenge? “I don’t know how that would go over,” Drysdale said. “It would obviously be really cool. There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
But it didn’t take long for Anaheim to unleash Drysdale against the game’s best. More and more, as the Ducks competed in a division-only schedule against the same seven teams, Drysdale was sent out to defend against MacKinnon, Anze Kopitar and Ryan O’Reilly. He’ll get to face McDavid next season.
Surely there is more to playing defense than great skating. But for 20 or 25 minutes a night, Drysdale could be a matchup answer for the Ducks for many years. “That’s what I get from this,” Braid said. “Seeing him succeed. That, for me, is the biggest part.”
“It’s obviously really cool to jump over and play against those guys,” Drysdale said. “And it’s a big challenge. But I think at the end of the day, you just got to take it for what it is. Enjoy the moment and have fun with it. Do as best as I can. I think that’s all I can do and just continue to work toward being able to shut those guys down.
“Being able to play with them. Hopefully, become a player like that one day.”
Niedermayer, one of the game’s greatest defensemen, has watched Drysdale at work. Whether it’s his skating or the fact that he loves having the puck or that he’s simply “just going after it” and isn’t nervous when he’s on the ice, Niedermayer sees a youngster determined to leave his mark in the league.
“I know my journey,” said the 2013 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee. “These guys are definitely coached a lot more from a younger age technically, obviously with the individual skills but also with team play, concepts and video. They’re further along than I ever was. But there is a lot to learn to have success at the NHL level and what it takes. Whether it’s personal preparation. Mental things. Or just learning little tricks and techniques. Things that really make a difference.
“That takes time. The only way you learn it is getting out there and doing it. He’s been fun to watch.”
It helps to already have the skating part down.
(Top photo: John Cordes / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
