With 59 players at camp and 19 defencemen, he’s looking for bigger picture traits such as how they work away from the puck, body position, and moving their feet when they need to. As he gets to know the players’ strengths and weaknesses better, he’ll dive into the minutia of how they skate, where the puck lands when they shoot, and things of that nature.
“At camp it’s just little details: how they close, how they use their stick, their body position. Do they work away from the puck to get open for their partner and little things like that,” Dean said.
Dean liked Vancouver’s penalty kill last year, so he says they’re not going to try and reinvent the wheel, just make some minor adjustments.
His philosophy is that all the defencemen should be able to operate on the PK, know the routes and stay on the inside ice. For forwards on the PK he likes speed, willingness to block shots and players with high attention to detail.
“Again, it's a good stick, it's inside position, it's body position, but I think PK is a lot of will,” Dean said.
“If you want to have a good kill, you’ve got to have a lot of will – a lot of willingness to block shots, to invite confrontations, to win pucks and get them down the ice.”
He's coached against the Canucks for years and as he gets to know the players and work more closely with them, it has inevitably given him a greater appreciation for their skills.
"I’ve been really impressed with Marcus Pettersson. We did a drill at the end of practice Friday that was really hard on the defencemen to not get beat one-on-one and I was really impressed with Marcus's feet,” Dean said.
One of Dean’s strengths is his ability to communicate and connect with players and he says that’s something he’ll have a chance to sink into in the coming days and weeks. With the size of the group and little down time between drills there hasn’t been much time for conversation.
“When we get to the games coming up it will be one on-ice session and then a game. So, there'll be some more time to start talking to guys, because I think that's so important,” Dean said.
“I think right now the players want to just skate and get the work done, and coaches are kind of in the same mode. Just get through the drills really well, and as the season starts, then there will be better conversations about certain parts of the game.”
In his 20th year as a coach, Dean says a successful training camp and preseason mean all the players are fully confident that they know where to go and what to do in every situation without hesitation to start the season.
“When the puck drops against Calgary on October 9th, we need to be sure there's going to be no hesitation where we are going because we've gone through it. Everyone understands it, and we're able to execute it because we've discussed it and lived it,” Dean said.
With his approach to camp grounded in teaching, Dean is helping the group build habits that will carry into the season. With two decades of coaching experience behind him, he’s preparing the blue line and PK be sharp, watching the lessons from camp take shape when the puck drops on opening night.
