NHL, AHL Teams Leverage Hudl’s Pro Suite for On-Ice Analysis

You can never underestimate the power of video.

Let’s look back. Game 6. First round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Florida– where the eighth seed Florida Panthers were fighting to stay alive and force a game 7 against a historic Boston Bruins team. A third period Jake DeBrusk goal is challenged by Head Coach Paul Maurice, who got word from Assistant Coaches John Congemi and Myles Fee– who both manage their video analysis workflows in-game and post-game, that there was a hand pass in the buildup to the goal and that it shouldn’t stand. The challenge was successful and the Panthers went on to win a pivotal game on their run towards the Stanley Cup Finals last year. 

“That was John Congemi,” head coach Paul Maurice said in the post-game press conference. “We got the call that it was a handpass and it’s tight, right? He caught that. That’s the game, right? Zac Dalpe gets a goal, Luosty gets a huge goal. Those are some names that don’t get talked about much — John Congemi, Myles Fee back in the video room — but what an impact they make. I did not have that on the bench.” 

As the NHL has expanded its use of video throughout the last decade, including its use on the bench over the last few seasons, teams across the league have looked to Hudl to help supplement their in-game and post-game analysis. At our recent Elite User Conference in Santa Monica, we asked a couple of the NHL and AHL’s premier video coaches about their use of Hudl’s Pro Suite at the highest levels of the sport. Here’s what they had to say about its impact.

“Our goalie coach really loves Studio. For him, he gets really into it– different colors, text boxes. He does a goalie loop for every single game, so he was actually really excited to get his hands on it. And for him, it's something he uses, I think almost on a game by game basis. So it's really kind of helped him hone in on specifics with goalies, which is so intricate on its own

It may not be an everyday in and out sort of thing for most people to use, but I find it kind of just adds a little more pizzazz or a little something different than what guys are used to seeing. And we're kind of hoping to get to the point where our coaches feel comfortable, where they can use it for pre scouts, maybe not on a daily basis, but here and there, just like I said, kind of switch things up."

“Hudl for our players is really big. They can watch shifts on the plane in between games, so it's really accessible for them. And I think just as a coaching staff, we like to utilize everything that Sportscode and Hudl has to offer, whether it's the drawing tools, different playlists sharing everything between each other. So we like to kind of dabble in a little bit of everything.”

“The strength Hudl and Sportscode provide is that everything is super customizable and there's more than one way to do something. My favorite customizable feature is that I can manipulate my code buttons to do more than one thing. So, for example, my five on five buttons can be one shade of green, and then I can use the same five on five buttons to change into a different shade of green. And what this does is it allows us to view our five on five events in one order and then our power play buttons in one order. So now we're more efficient in between periods going to the getting the information that we want to see quickly.

I like that we can capture multiple angles at once and it's a seamless transition, just a touch on the keyboard going from one angle to the next.”

“Coming from the program we used to work with, it's a lot more up to date with the world and the computers that we're using. So everything's just streamlined a lot better. And it looks a lot better than the program and I like the interface of it. It is awesome, easy to find things on. So that's a big thing for us.

It just seems like it's the way of the future. Like it seems like no one's really switching away from Hudl, they’re switching to Hudl. And I think that's just a testament to the product itself and the people like Evan and Mike, Brenna and Chuck who are, you know, available 24/7 to us pretty much. And I don't know if I've ever seen the text of it and not got a response in the first 5 minutes.

So it's been awesome. And it's one of those things where you actually feel like you're valued and heard as opposed to just like another number for the company. So I do think it's a big, big testament to the product that people are switching from others to Hudl as opposed to away from Hudl to the other product.

Just coming from what we used to come from and like creating playlists and making meetings, it was such a pain in the program we were using. But now the way it works in disorder order, being able to do that so easily, it's just streamlined everything."