Coaches break down season in segments to retain manageable goals

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2025-26 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. In this edition, Dan Lambert, former assistant with the Buffalo Sabres, Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames, discusses how coaches break down the season in segments to keep players focused throughout the year.

When you're part of an NHL coaching staff, you look at the season in segments.

There's the way we lay it out among ourselves behind closed doors, and then there's the way we present it to the players. Both approaches have value, but they serve different purposes.

Internally, we always divide the season into four major parts: The first 20 games, the second 20, the 20-plus leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline and then the stretch after the deadline. The season gets tougher as it goes on, so those early segments are critical.

The first 20 games usually offer the best chance to bank wins because teams across the League are still adjusting: new systems, coaching changes, roster turnover, young players trying to earn jobs. There are simply more mistakes early in the year and that's why a strong start is something we emphasize heavily.

Once teams settle in, the games tighten up and putting together longer winning streaks becomes harder.

With the players, the breakdown is much smaller and more focused. We don't talk to them about 20-game blocks. Instead, we work in five-game segments, sometimes seven, and later in the year we'll even narrow things to three-game mini-sets, especially when every point becomes critical.

In those stretches, the message might be as simple as, "Let's win two of these next three." It keeps the goals manageable and the group locked in on the immediate task rather than the full 82-game grind.

When we look at the standings this season, the parity in the League is obvious. You see a team like the Florida Panthers or Toronto Maple Leafs sitting outside a Stanley Cup Playoff spot, which you wouldn't expect, but they're only a few points out and that's how tight the League is now.

The same thing is happening in the Western Conference.

A team like the Winnipeg Jets, last season's Presidents' Trophy winner, finds itself outside the mix because of injuries to key players. Scenarios like that remind us why middle-tier teams simply can't afford a poor start. The elite clubs have the ability to go on a 9-1-0 or 8-0-1 stretch at almost any point.

Middle-tier teams don't always have that gear and winning four or five straight is much more difficult for them.

U.S. Thanksgiving is one of the checkpoints we use. If you're outside a playoff spot at that point, you're just hoping you don't have half a dozen teams to jump over. That's when the focus has to narrow quickly.

With about 12 to 15 games before the Christmas break, we'll evaluate what needs to happen, maybe it's eight or nine wins to gain ground. Nobody wants to be eight or 10 points back at Thanksgiving, because too many teams hover at .500 or better and it's extremely tough to make up ground on that many clubs.

December is usually a productive month in terms of engagement because players know the holiday break is coming, but the games just before Christmas and the ones right after can be challenging.

You get families in town, disrupted routines and distractions that can throw players off just enough to effect performance. That's the time when we have to work a little harder to keep the group focused.

Sometimes the schedule helps, like when there's a homestand. A five-game homestand becomes its own segment. The goal is always to win every game, but realistically, if we need to make up ground, winning three or four in that stretch can change our position quickly.

Explore NHL.com's Coverage of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026

These are internal targets we discuss as a staff and based on the personality of the team, we decide how much of that to share with the players.

This season adds an extra layer with the February break for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. The 4 Nations Face-Off gave teams a taste of an in-season interruption and the Olympics will be another challenge. The players going to the Games will hit a major emotional and physical high, and at some point, they'll need a break. Once they return, giving them some practices off often is needed.

Once the team comes back from the Olympic break, it almost feels like the start of a new season. The challenge is to keep the group dialed in heading into the break, then reengage quickly once it's over, because the final stretch tightens up dramatically.

Breaking down the season is really about timing.

Internally, we coaches think in big segments, but with the players, it's all about keeping the goals manageable, one segment, one stretch, one achievable target at a time.

That's how you navigate an 82-game schedule and give yourself a chance when it matters.