Meet the Teacher

Twenty minutes before any Winnipeg Jets practice or morning skate, it's easy to find assistant coach Todd Woodcroft.
He's usually positioning a device he calls the "rebound board" somewhere in front of a net, and dumping a bucket of pucks right next to it.
Then, the usual group of six or seven players get out for some pre-practice work, burying shots that bank off Woodcroft's four-foot long by eight inch high rebound board.
The players aren't just trying to hit the net. They're shooting to specific spots.
Spots that Woodcroft and goaltending coach Wade Flaherty have determined as the best options to score on that night's opposing goaltender.
"When I came on, one of the things that Paul was talking about was creating offence, and finding different ways of creating offence," said the 45-year-old Woodcroft. "(Flaherty) might say 'this goalie has trouble high glove or anything around his ears.' So that morning when we do stuff before the morning skate, we'll work specifically on that, and the drills we do will be specific.
"We're trying to work on the route of getting pucks to the net from those areas so it becomes muscle memory for those guys."

Woodcroft has plenty more drills like this, built up over a 17-year career that has taken him all over the world. His NHL resume includes stops in Minnesota (video coach), Washington (video coach and scout), Los Angeles (European scout), and Calgary (Director of Scouting), before joining the Jets in 2016 as an assistant coach.

He won a Stanley Cup in 2012, during his second of four seasons with the Kings. Internationally, he has two gold medals on his resume. One in 2004 with Canada at the IIHF World Hockey Championship, and just this past spring, he earned another one with Sweden at the same event.
It was his second stint with Sweden, after working as an assistant coach with their national team during the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
"To be honest I've just been really lucky. I've been lucky to have had people that have wanted to have me on their staff and bring a small bit of energy and some positivity," said Woodcroft. "From the Swedish side, hopefully they saw some of the North American way of doing things. I was the only North American on their staff. It was great. Winning gold was awesome. Beating Canada and me being Canadian, it was really weird. But I'm just a small part of the staff there, ultimately the players are the guys that have to do it."
Sweden was just Woodcroft's most recent appearance on the international side. In 2006, he was offered the chance to work with Glen Hanlon, who was coaching the Belarus national team 15 years after his 14-year NHL career as a goaltender had come to an end.
Woodcroft jumped at the opportunity, and worked with Hanlon during the IIHF World Hockey Championship that spring, and again in 2014.
One year later, after his final season as the Director of Scouting with the Flames, Hanlon once again called on Woodcroft to be an assistant coach. This time it was with Switzerland, where he would work with players like Roman Josi and Mark Streit.
Looking back, those international experiences left a mark on Woodcroft, and changed who he was as a person. He calls his time in Belarus one of the greatest experiences of his life.

"Belarus is basically a Russian culture. I knew nothing about it before I went over there. I wouldn't have been able to find it on a map, I didn't know anything about Russian, or Russian people, or Russian culture," said Woodcroft. "The connections I made, and the ability to have an understanding of Russian culture, it's made me a way better person first of all - a way better person having an understanding of that side of the world, and even Russian players.
"I've learned some Russian, the ability to speak to Russian guys but understand how it's very different growing up as a Russian player than it is growing up as a North American player. It's been an advantage for me having spent time over there. I do go back every summer and spend a couple weeks in Russia. I seem to always be over there for some reason. I really enjoy it."
Woodcroft may call himself lucky to be asked to join coaching staffs around the world, but it's hard to argue with the results.
So when the Jets came calling, and hired Woodcroft in the summer of 2016, head coach Paul Maurice put him right to work.
"He has a whole host of things on his plate," said Maurice. "One of them first, was a face-off program. (The program) would probably surprise you in detail on every centre in the National Hockey League, all the face-off plays. The individual work that he has done with all our centre men has made a statistical impact."
It certainly has.
At the end of the 2015-16 season, the Jets finished 28th in the NHL in face-off percentage (46.7 per cent). In Woodcroft's first season (2016-17), the team jumped seven spots to 21st, winning 48.5 percent. Now, early in the 2017-18 season, the Jets centres are ranked third in the league, winning 52.7 per cent of their draws.
With the majority of the centres on the Jets roster under the age of 25, the amount of video Woodcroft has been able to compile, and a sound game plan going into the face-off dot, has helped bridge the experience gap the players may face on any given night.
"Ultimately, face-offs come down to experience. So if we have Adam Lowry going up against Mikko Koivu, there's a difference of about 12,000 face-offs in his career," said Woodcroft. "We want to try and give Adam, Mark (Scheifele), Bryan (Little), Andrew Copp, and Matt Hendricks, all those guys that take most of our face-offs, we want to be able to give them as much information as we can, and prepare them as much as we can."
In late November, Lowry's face-off winning percentage sat at over 51 per cent, an increase of almost five per cent from his 2014-2015 rookie season.
"For the first few years that I was in the league we kind of struggled in that aspect, and he came in and changed the way we approach it, and the way we approach different guys," said Adam Lowry, who works with Woodcroft almost daily. ""It's tough in practice and with our busy schedule to kind of get those opportunities in a regular practice. So anytime he's able to take us out, it's good. He's a guy that likes to joke around and keep things light. It's always fun working with Woody."
The job is fun for Woodcroft too. Even if it means getting on the ice 20 minutes early to set up a rebound board, or stay 20 minutes late simulating face-off after face-off.
"To be honest, it's almost like every single day I'm going to university with some great mentors, great people to work with," said Woodcroft. "Right off the bat, Paul challenged me, and allowed me to have a voice. Challenge from him is such a big word, because every day he challenges you to get better, to get smarter, to do that for our players. For me, it's been awesome."
- Mitchell Clinton, WinnipegJets.com