from Sean Gordon of the Globe and Mail,

Gush all you want about the magic of Galchenyuk’s toe-drags, Patrick Kane’s crazy dangles, Steven Stamkos’s uncanny one-timer or Pavel Dastyuk’s pickpocket cunning (the general sense among NHL players is the Russian is the da Vinci of hands), just know it’s not strictly about their sticks or the strength and flexibility of their limbs.

It’s about their heads. More specifically, perceptual-cognitive processing.

Research suggests the region in the brain’s temporal lobe that processes “biological motion” may hold the key to unlocking why some players excel at accepting passes in tight spaces, or stickhandling at top speed, or getting off a quick, precise shot.

That’s not to be confused with eye-hand co-ordination.

That’s the downstream process which is thought to live in something called the occipital junction, in the frontal and parietal lobes. The brain is a complicated place.

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