The Florida Panthers have demonstrated a whole lot of skill so far in the 2024 NHL Playoffs and Peter Bohunicky is a major reason why.
Bohunicky, the Founder and Head Skills Coach at BP Hockey Academy, is also a Skills Coach for the Panthers. The 44-year-old Slovak has most recently worked with rising stars Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar, alongside notable veterans like Marian Gaborik, Marian Hossa, and Tomas Tatar.
Bohunicky is known for taking a detailed and tactical approach to challenging and pushing his players by making them uncomfortable during training drills. This allows his players to better be able to effectively adapt and make quick decisions at game-time speed. However, Bohunicky emphasizes the importance of doing drills correctly and slowly while progressively building up to game speed.
The area of the game that Bohunicky keys in on is deception. Bohunicky strongly believes that deception is not just the most important hockey skill but also in all sports. Through detailed and precise drill designs, Bohunicky creates situations that allow players to work on deceiving opponents by creating time and space both with and without the puck.
Take a wild guess what Bohunicky’s presentation topic was during the 2023 Global Skills Showcase!
With Bohunicky’s coaching style, he stresses the importance of being able to read plays on the ice and instills an instinct in his players to be able to scan the ice constantly in their movement. Common drills that Bohunicky creates have a focus on a player’s stride swipe, hip movement, and fake shooting. These fundamentals all fall under Bohunicky core value which is to create deception while on the ice.
Through his vast range of experience coaching those from the PeeWee level to the new budding stars of the NHL, there are very few that can enhance and develop a player’s skills like Bohunicky. With a core mindset of helping players develop a greater sense of deception on the ice, Bohunicky has been able to create a coaching style that allows any player to not just get to the next level but thrive at that level. We are delighted to welcome Peter Bohunicky to TCS Live this June where he will present more about his coaching style that highlights deception as the key focus.
