In-Season Performance Insights with NHL’s Alexi Pianosi

Alexi Pianosi, head strength and conditioning coach of the Colorado Avalanche, shows NHL performance staff how he uses training impulse (TRIMP) per minute, morning HRV and game heart rate curves to plan practice and manage player load.

About this webinar

Alexi Pianosi is in his second season with the Colorado Avalanche, after seven years with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With host John Lai, he shows the Firstbeat reports his staff send to the coaches after practice. He also shows game heart rate curves for four players over five games and last season’s team table of morning heart rate variability (HRV). He covers setting practice intensity, game load by position and keeping scratched and injured players fit. All data was collected within the NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA), with player consent. The webinar runs about 78 minutes and was recorded on 17 March 2026.

What you will learn

• Why duration and TRIMP per minute, not total TRIMP, are the numbers the Avalanche head coach plans practice around
• The three practice bands the staff use: 0.8–1.2 easy, 1.3–1.6 moderate, 1.7–2.0 hard
• How the TRIMP order on the post-practice report shows which player to ask about
• Why one defenseman runs roughly 100 TRIMP above another who plays more
• Why rehab skates often cost more than the practice a player returns to

Practical examples from the recording

1. Two numbers for the head coach. Pianosi and the head coach agree on the length of practice and its TRIMP per minute. Most practices last 30–40 minutes, so intensity is what changes. In two recent practices of 39 and 40 minutes, players logged 58 and 74 TRIMP, which works out to 1.5 and 1.9 per minute. Most practices fall between 1.3 and 1.6. A hard day of 1.7–2.0 is fine at 30–40 minutes. When it runs to 60–70 minutes, Pianosi sees extra fatigue and sometimes lower HRV the next day. With three and a half games a week, he rarely plans a practice like that.

2. Reading the report in 30 seconds. Players usually come out in much the same order on the TRIMP report. In one practice the team average was 70, and the player who usually sits at the bottom had 23. If he climbs toward the top, Pianosi first looks for a simple reason. He might have been a defenseman doing double reps with two defensemen missing, or he might be sick. Otherwise he checks the player’s minutes the night before, his skating load over seven days and his morning HRV.

3. Two defensemen, two styles. One defenseman averaged about 20.5 minutes over five games and logged 160, 151, 179, 123 and 136 TRIMP. Another played a minute to a minute and a half less and ran roughly 100 higher. In one game the physical one spent almost 13 minutes in the red, his top heart rate zone. The calm, positional one spent no time there. Pianosi judges each against his own norm, and 160 is no concern if it is normal for that player. Because game recordings run about three and a half hours uncut, he uses total TRIMP for games.

4. Extra skates and rehab. Healthy scratches do their conditioning on the ice in extra skates of 20–30 minutes. Pianosi doses this work by time above 90% HRmax, because players reach that level in games. When a player never gets into the red, Pianosi asks the skills coach for 25–30-second drills with 30 seconds of rest, repeated three or four times. Rehab skates reach 120, 150 or 175 TRIMP in 50 minutes to an hour. The next day’s 30-minute practice at 1.5 comes to about 45. After two or three high days in a row, he may back off.

Questions answered in the Q&A

How do you set max heart rate when the CBA ends fitness testing? Pianosi asks the player’s former team for a value. If there is none, he watches the player in a high-intensity practice. He then keeps the same max heart rate and zones all season so that changes in a player stay comparable.

Should TRIMP be adjusted for goalies? Pianosi still reads a goalie’s TRIMP against that goalie’s own norm. One goalie logged 304, 251, 205, 234 and 267 over five games. In the game shown, his heart rate stayed high through each period, so Pianosi puts a bit more weight on aerobic capacity in goalies’ off-season training.

How do you compare a high-minute player with a fourth-line player? Pianosi compares each player with his own norm. Players who log 26–28 minutes a night are adapted to that load. Low-minute players sit on the bench with an elevated heart rate for two and a half hours, and some don’t sleep until 2:30 or 3, so they can be tired too.

How do you handle player consent for heart rate data in the NHL? All data is collected within the CBA rules, and every player gives consent. The players shown in the webinar saw their data and signed off, and most names are redacted. Pianosi says that if data is used against players’ interests, their trust and buy-in go down.

Who this webinar is for

This webinar is for heads of performance, sports scientists and strength and conditioning coaches in NHL and NCAA Division I hockey who plan load around a dense game schedule. Return-to-play coaches will find it useful for keeping injured and scratched players game-fit.