Scott Murray on new definition of tracking and applying it in the NHL

Our six-part series on modern tracking featuring Washington Capitals goaltending coach Scott Murray continues this week with a unique series of movement drills he calls “ISO-track.”

By maintaining puck movement but eliminating the shot in these progressive movement drills, Ilya Samsonov, Pheonix Copley and No. 1 Braden Holtby were able to focus on their tracking.

“Taking out the shot changed a lot,” Murray said. “They were allowed to focus on vision, allowed to focus on tracking without that threat of a shot, so it eliminated that anticipation and that change of position with their body and really allowed them to focus on tracking the puck and just showed them how easy the game can be when you lead with vision.”

As you’ll see in the video below, Murray starts with a single puck carrier moving around the zone and below the net, adds two players with a pass option, and then also throws in a screen on top of the crease with goalie Vitek Vanecek, increasing the difficulty each time.

“You can make it hard as you want,” Murray said. “As long as you take that shot out, you get that desired output as far as the priority of how we want to move and how we want to see.”