Wolves coach Craig MacTavish demands shooting after loss to Heat

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Updated: December 5, 2011 1:18AM

Craig MacTavish has a mandate for his team in the coming week of practice.

Currently on a four-game skid after losing all three games this past weekend, the Wolves’ coach plans to drill his team on one of hockey’s most important fundamentals.

Shooting the puck.

The Wolves have been hesitating to take low-percentage shots, limiting their second-chance scoring opportunities. In a 3-1 loss to the Abbotsford Heat on Sunday at Allstate Arena, the Wolves didn’t create enough scoring opportunities in an otherwise evenly played game, largely the product of waiting for a perfect shot.

“We need a more aggressive shooting mentality,” MacTavish said. “We get the puck to the net and unless we get a clean look, we don’t take the shot. We don’t get enough traffic at the front of the net.”

It might be a mental challenge for a Wolves team that, at its best, plays a pretty brand of hockey. But those in the Wolves’ locker room who struggle with the MacTavish directive should ask Tim Miller about its results.

Though Miller says coaches have been telling him to shoot more since he was 6 years old, he was decisive in putting that advice to use this weekend.

Over the past week, the coaching staff encouraged Miller specifically to shoot more, and it resulted in a two-goal weekend for the 24-year-old forward.

Miller scored the Wolves’ only goal Sunday at 11:59 of the first period, tying the score at 1. Miller also scored in the Wolves’ 3-2 shootout loss to the Heat on Friday.

“I like to pass, and the coaches have been talking to me and I’ve been talking to some of the guys around the locker room and they’re telling me to start shooting the puck,” Miller said. “I’ve gotten a couple of bounces, and it has gone in so it’s working out.”

The Wolves trailed 2-1 in the third period when the Heat’s Guillaume Desbiens was called for a five-minute boarding penalty. But the Wolves, looking for the perfect scoring opportunity, only mustered one shot during the power play.

Seven seconds after the penalty ended, Abbotsford scored a power-play goal of its own to go up 3-1.

“That’s probably more desperation in our game and less gamesmanship,” MacTavish said. “The situation called for more gamesmanship, and we just applied a bunch of desperation.”