How wearable tracking devices are changing the way NHL players practice and return from injuries

After every Edmonton Oilers practice, head strength and conditioning coach Chad Drummond makes a lap around the dressing room.

As players shed their equipment, Drummond walks around collecting a small electronic device from each of their shoulder pads.

Inside the small device is a 3D accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer.

Simply put, its tracking every movement a player makes on the ice.

Every skating stride.

Every crossover.

The one inside goaltender Calvin Pickard s chest protector is even keeping track of every time he drops into the butterfly.

Advertisement Drummond takes the devices and plugs them into a docking station, where the data is collected and contextualized.

Within minutes, he has access to every players workload for that practice, with metrics as precise as the force exerted by each skating stride.

Some players arent as interested in the numbers.

Some cant wait to see their report for the day.

Pickard makes a point to show up to Rogers Place a little early on every game day so he can go over his numbers from that mornings skate with Drummond.

His playing time is less regular as a backup goalie, so maintaining consistent workloads, regardless of how often hes playing, is key.

In a typical practice, he drops to the ice roughly 200 times, so he likes to monitor how close he comes to that number on a daily basis, as well as how often hes pushing to his left and right to keep the workload similar for both legs.

More than 80 percent of NHL and AHL teams are using the equipment, produced by a company called Catapult.

The technology has been used by some NHL teams for 25 years, but with the recent rise of popularity for tracking technology in sports, its becoming a must-have for almost all clubs.

The information gathered by these devices has fundamentally changed the way NHL teams approach and plan practice schedules, as well as how they rehabilitate players from injury.

It has kind of turned into a little bit of an arms race the past six or seven years, Drummond said.

Theres all of this technology and I feel like everyone is trying to dive in and get their hands on everything possible.

Founded in 2006, Catapult is being used by more than 4,000 teams across more than 40 sports, from football to basketball, handball and even motorsports.

The company uses these small tracking devices that are worn by the players during practice to monitor a handful of metrics.

Those numbers can be used in a multitude of ways, but the simplest form measures a players workload.

Advertisement They measure a players change in acceleration in any direction (up, down, forward, backward and side to side), then boil all of that data down to a single number, which they call workload.

A typical game for an NHL player produces a workload between 200 and 250.

That can obviously vary based on the players role and ice time, but it works as a nice baseline metric for strength coaches to monitor.

As a general rule of thumb, most teams aim for players to reach approximately 4.5 games worth of workload in a week during the season.

Thats approximately 1,000 player load, just as a floor.

People in hockey always think, Oh youre just going to tell me that I need to rest guys more, said Patrick Love, senior customer success specialist at Catapult and former assistant strength coach for the Oilers.

Its actually trying to get them to work more, safely, especially guys who are the low-minute players.

The data is being used to stabilize workload throughout a season, not minimize it.

Higher workload doesnt necessarily equal an increased risk of injury, but a wide-ranging workload from week to week can.

In many cases especially for players further down the lineup practice workload actually needs to be increased.

There are all of these things you inherently know about the sport if youve played it, coached it or been around it, but when we started to get our hands on the data that Catapult provided, all of a sudden there was this huge bright light shown on things we didnt understand or know, said Matt Price, director of strength and performance science for the Los Angeles Kings .

Managing separate workloads for 23 different players on the roster throughout a long season can be incredibly challenging for coaches, but having hard data to lean on helps tremendously.

I think what coaches do really well, by feel, is they manage the team, but they would sort of manage it as if theyre all in the top-six or top-four pairing, Price explained.

At the time here, (former coach) Darryl Sutter would make his decisions based on what Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty did, and for guys who were playing with those players, that worked.

What it really did is, it highlighted the need that we needed to address the individual, because the large majority of players dont play 24-28 minutes a night, and maybe they didnt need a day off, or a quick skate.

Advertisement Now, coaches have precise data on things as specific as the average workload for an individual drill.

That gives them a library of drills with a corresponding workload, allowing them to construct practice schedules by mixing and matching drills to achieve a specific workload.

Drafted by the Kings with the No.

11 overall pick in 2005, Kopitar has seen the approach change dramatically over his nearly two decades in the NHL.

Its different, right? Kopitar said.

Were talking 18 years ago, when the science was non-existent and the coaches were a touch more old school.

They had the beat of the team, and they did whatever they thought was needed.

They didnt have any numbers to look at or rely on.

If we were playing well, we would get some easy days.

If youre not playing well, even if youre tired, you arent getting any easy days.

Many players were hesitant when the technology was first introduced.

When Catapult first came into the building in Edmonton, players were very resistant to using it, said Jeremy Coupal, who served as the Oilers video coach from 2016 to 2023 and is now a hockey product manager for Catapult.

There was a player who was like, Im not wearing this thing.

Dont put it in my shoulder pads.

No chance.

Then (five years later) he gets injured, sees how the data is being used to help him, and then hes coming to me asking if he can wear it in a game.

There are still reservations on the players side.

In order for players to wear the Catapult devices in practice, they must sign off on a waiver.

To wear them in a game, they must contact the NHL Players Association.

The use of wearable technology remains completely voluntary, NHLPA spokesperson Jonathan Weatherdon said, and players have the right to share their wearable data with their club and to request that their club delete their data at any time.

The NHLPA remains focused on ensuring that players understand their rights to their own data.

Advertisement There also seems to be a bit of a generational divide on this subject.

Younger players are more accustomed to being monitored as theyve grown up with technology even in junior hockey.

This generation is trying to gamify everything, Love said.

Youre coming up and using it in college, and the American (Hockey) League.

Its just something you do.

Some veterans arent as interested in the numbers.

Im old school, you know? Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury said.

I never look at (the metrics).

I know when Im tired.

I know when Im feeling good, or when I need to push more.

Some days after a game, going to bed at 3 oclock because I couldnt sleep, then the kids get me up early, I know Im not feeling great.

Maybe because Ive done this a long time, so I know my body, but I still think the information can be good for the team.

Sometimes I look at the numbers, but most times I just ask how my numbers are, they say good, and thats good enough for me, Vegas forward Tomas Hertl said.

Im not a big numbers guy first and foremost, but Ive found that once you get a little bit older, like I am now, its actually beneficial, Kopitar said.

You can tell if the body needs a rest, or if you need a little kick in the butt to get going again.

Perhaps the most powerful utilization of this data is how it assists returning players from an injury.

In Bakersfield two seasons ago I sprained my ankle, and we were targeting a goalie workload basically on a daily basis once I started skating, Pickard explained.

We wanted to be around 300, then when we really kicked it into gear we wanted to be over 500, which is a hard practice.

When I came back I felt ready to go, so its definitely a good tool.

Even the players who arent overly interested in the data on a daily basis agree that it can be helpful when tracking progress in recovery.

Having concrete checkpoints that go beyond how many practice reps a player does, or how theyre feeling, can be valuable for the coaches and trainers.

Advertisement If you want to return a player back to playing, and you know what they look like in a game, then theres your end point, Price said.

As you work through the return to play program, you can easily start to expose them to elements of the game, or portions.

You can say, Today is going to be a one-period workload day.

The data quantifies a players physical exertion on a typical week during the season, and allows the team to slowly build up to that when returning from injury.

The concept isnt groundbreaking, but having proof that shows the player progressing from a 250 workload week, to 500, to 750 and eventually the full 1,000 is a powerful tool.

If you want to return a player back to playing, and you know what they look like in a game, then theres your end point, Price said.

As you work through the return-to-play program, you can easily start to expose them to elements of the game, or portions.

You can say, Today is going to be a one-period workload day.

Perhaps even more valuable, in certain situations the data can also show how close a player is to being back to full strength physically.

One of the metrics recorded by Catapult is the force a player exerts with each skating stride (which is also broken down to left versus right strides).

With that, the team and its doctors can use concrete data to see where a player actually is.

You (used to) have this out-of-left-field, shoot-from-the-hip, semi-medically guided strategy of we can try this, then we can try that, Price said.

Youre kind of feeling your way through the dark a little bit, asking the player how they feel.

This newfound data can empower the doctors and trainers.

When coaches ask about a player, they now have subjective data that shows a player is either ready to return, or he isnt.

It makes me more confident than Ive ever been as a practitioner, Dallas Stars physical therapist Nick Andreas said.

Theres always a gray area when returning a guy back to sport, but I feel like the risk has gone down by having the data.

Advertisement The players get a confidence boost as well.

We have a handful of metrics that we want them to show that they can achieve without any sort of set back, Price said.

As they see those numbers start to pop up, its amazing to see them lighten up and smile.

Theres this palpable confidence that they exude.

If there was one consensus opinion among the players, it was that they love the return-to-play application of the technology.

Either way, the technology used to monitor sports performance will continue to grow, as will its uses.

We can show them in real time that theyre getting back into game shape, Price said.

We can tell them, When you get to this value, youre going to feel incredible.

The confidence that they take out of that is pretty incredible.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic ; Photos: Jason Mowry, Winslow Townson / Getty Images).

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