Taylor Leier

When taking a penalty shot, it is important to stay calm and confident. Have two moves in your head that you are confident in, and base your decision on the position of the goalie in his crease. Execute the move with confidence and aim to bury the puck.
 
Transcript: "If you ever took a penalty shot, what goes through your mind and your approach? Okay, so for me, I have two key things that help me stay calm and confident. It's a high stress time, there's a lot of excitement, there's nerves involved. And the first one is I like to have two shots in my head that I'm very confident in. They're my top two moves. And the second thing I like to think about is where the goalie is in his crease. If he's further out, if he's challenging, I'm probably gonna lean towards more of a deke. And if he's deeper in his net, there'll be more net showing. I'm probably gonna think more about a shot. Once I pick up the puck, I usually check around the blue line-ish where the goalie is and that's when I make the split-second decision on which of the two moves I'm doing. And after that, I try and stay confident with it, try to bury it. So hopefully that helps."

I like to walk golfing in the early summer and play tennis with my friends for conditioning.
 
Transcript: "Okay, what is your favorite conditioning to do that is not your sport? I like to walk, golfing in the first part of summer right after the season. It's very low impact, but you get a lot of steps in. It's still great exercise. I just find that keeps me really active throughout a day while you're playing golf. And then as the summer moves on, on top of training and skating and stuff, I like tennis, tennis against your buddies. It gets competitive. Usually the matches are pretty long. So tennis really, I find, gets your lungs and your legs going. And yeah, I like that a lot for conditioning."

The CCM Jetspeed is my go-to hockey stick because it has a great kick point and I can customize the pattern, lie, length, grip, and curve to fit my playing style.
 
Transcript: "What is the best hockey stick in my opinion? I really like the CCM Jet Speed which used to be the CCM Tac. What got me to use that stick is when I first tried it was the kick point. I think that is a huge part in finding the right stick especially for what I was looking for which is quick release, not a lot of wind up in your snapshots and wrist shots. I wanted to get the puck off as quickly as possible and I think that did that for me and then once I fiddled with my pattern, my lie, the length, the grip, the rounded shaft, those are things I like and I haven't changed for a long time. So that is my stick and that is my go to."

I overcame two difficult injuries, a shoulder tear and a neck fracture, by using it as an opportunity to build my mental strength.
 
Transcript: "most difficult injury I've had to overcome. This one comes to mind right away and it's one that actually happened training in the offseason. I tore the labrum in my shoulder and I was out from June until December and that was my first extensive rehab that I had to do. That was over a month, two months, so that was almost seven months and it took a ton of mental and physical strength and it was a battle every day but I used it as a test every day to persevere and my shoulders never felt better now. And actually once I got healthy from that, about four weeks later, I took a slap shot to the neck in front of the net and it fractured the spinous process and it's like one of the bones right off your vertebrae. So I was out for five weeks of that one too, so that was back-to-back tough balances. But yeah, I tried to use it as adversity and a character builder and my mental strength definitely got better because of those two things, but obviously very unfortunate."

The goalie is trying to alert their team that the power play is about to end and they should get ready for a five on five situation.
 
Transcript: "What message is a goalie trying to send by banging their stick on the ice? This usually happens at the end of a power play when the goalie on your team is trying to get your attention to let you know the penalty is about to expire. So it's usually for the guys on the ice, obviously, to let them know that an opposing player is going to be coming out of the penalty box behind them. Sometimes if you're not paying attention, this can result in breakaways or grade A chances. So guys on the ice have to be alert and it's just a way for the goalie to help out to let them know that there's a couple seconds left on the power play and it's going to be 5 on 5 again."

Preventative measures to avoid injury include warming up before games, practices and workouts and offseason training to set a foundation and get strong.
 
Transcript: "What are some preventative measures you take to avoid getting injured? There's two things that come to my mind right away, and that is warming up before games, practices, training, and the second is off-season training. Off-season training, I think it's an athlete's job to set a foundation, get strong, get mobile in preparation for the season that's very long, grueling, and physically demanding. The second is warming up before games, practices, and workouts. That's equally as important to get your muscles firing, turn on your central nervous system, get a sweat in. This is preparing your body to perform and ultimately prevent injury."