Ok so a little background. I never played hockey as a kid. Picked it up in university and taught myself how to skate on the ODR. I put in a lot of hours on my skating and consider myself a pretty good skater now. I switched to defense a few years ago and it's stuck since. I like to play a quick game with a lot of tight turns and pivots.

I've been trying to round out my game and working on generating more power from my shots and one timers. I've found that it's hard flexing my stick on wristers/snapshots in stride as when I'm in my forward stride and crossovers, I get very low and the puck is quite far ahead of me. I have no problems letting a wrister go in stride, even with the puck away from my body. But watching Matthews or Bedard release the puck, they seem to release the puck quite close to their body. The same goes for my one timers, I think I'm just too used to having contact with the puck further away from my body.

I guess my question is: is this a 'bad' habit to develop over time and should I try to be more upright in my stride? For some reason it feels natural to me, especially doing linear crossovers or just pushing the puck ahead with one hand and striding towards it. I think the only time I'm more upright is when I'm gliding and protecting the puck with my body, and widening my base.

Thanks!