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

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