Shea Weber has one of the most feared slapshots in the NHL, but Don Cherry knows the secret to blocking it.
During Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada Saturday, Cherry showed a clip of Weber scoring with his signature slapper against the Arizona Coyotes. On this particular play, Coyotes forward Josh Archibald was given the unfortunate task of blocking Weber’s shot, but the Regina native instead jumped out of the way.
So Cherry gave some advice to Archibald for the next time he has to stare down Weber’s cannon.
“It’s easy for me to say, standing here… I don’t blame (Archibald) for jumping,” Cherry said. “But I’ll tell you what we used to do with (Denis) Potvin.
“He had a howitzer just like (Weber) but what we did, we played out a little more. We never saw his shot. If (Archibald) had been out five feet he could have blocked the shot.
“So if you have a guy like that, I don’t blame you for jumping. But when you have a guy like Weber you have to play out on him.”
Teams have been trying to solve Shea Weber’s slapper since he broke into the league in the 2005-06 season. But no defenceman has more than Weber’s 194 goals since his NHL debut, which only further makes the case that teams still haven’t figured him out.
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