Adam Henrique's Game 6 Goal: The Importance of Shooting off the Catch

Adam Henrique has widely been known for his off-ice skill work when it comes to improving hockey sense and understanding how to create favorable conditions when he has the puck on his stick. He is really underrated and can be utilized anywhere given those instincts, which helps him not only as a defensive-minded center but also in the offensive zone as well. There's a lot of tangible skills that go into being successful on the catch through shots, which Henrique demonstrated quite well in Game 6 on his 2nd period goal that put Edmonton up 2-0 at the time.

We'll see the sequence happen at 2:53 here. This initial strong side rim from Mattias Ekholm forced Florida to change sides directly, but also opened up a lot of ice since Florida wasn't able to track back in time to get to this puck here. Henrique is behind everyone on the far weak side where he was able to anticipate space moving up ice and swung away on the defensive zone situation to get away from pressure. Henrique opened himself up as an initial option, and then expanded that when creating the 2v1 off the rush with Mattias Janmark to be a shot threat in the scenario. Janmark isn't necessarily a true shooter but tends to be more pass first, and the imminent threat for Bobrovsky comes if the pass across to Henrique becomes completed. This is because of multiple factors:

1. Janmark's route coming down the dot lane mean he'd have to shoot from afar, with D1 closing in on him and Bobrovsky already lined up to angle to this shot
2. Janmark passes directly across the royal road, opening up a seam and forces Bobrovsky to change his angle on the fly
3. Bobrovsky also has to change net depth off the royal road pass. When facing Janmark, he had more leeway to stay deeper in his net, and against Henrique, he was forced to come higher and look to play more toward the top of the crease.
4. Two things on the Henrique shot: Bobrovsky's net depth got exposed and he didn't adapt in time to his angle to Henrique, and wasn't lined up.

There's more advantages to NHL offensive situations through east-west plays and passes that occur across the royal road, which we see here with Henrique's shot and Janmark's pass. The alignment of Bobrovsky is completely different on both of those sequences here, almost looking as if Bobrovsky was ready for a shot from Janmark the entire time. If Bobrovsky played more to the top of his crease and then slid across on the Henrique shot, he might've been able to shut down this play early with better angular play.

On the shot, there are multiple noticeable details in what Henrique does to stay composed and not panic with the puck in the situation:

1. He angles his body language telling Janmark he is ready to shoot: Free top elbow, stick on ice, body/skate orientation to the net to gain set up in how he wants to shoot, keeps wide back foot and front foot.
2. He doesn't stickhandle, he holds the puck inside the catch and then releases
3. Notice how he keeps shape the entire sequence when he is about to shoot, giving him leverage in his posture and how he wants to shoot.
4. The body orientation element allows him to shoot far side here as well.

A lot of these elements are very translatable in how Henrique set up for shot form and then translated those elements through the shot. Especially the ability to hold his weight, adapting with the puck off the pass from Janmark, and then looking to shoot without losing speed and looking to the far side of Bobrovsky. A very hard play to execute, but Henrique made it look seamless with how he anticipated how he wanted to shoot this puck before Jammark actually passed to him.

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