Keep exploring adjacent equipment tools after you match your blade pattern.
Heel, mid or toe? Open or flat? Stop picking blades off the wall by name. Nine quick questions and we'll point you to a pattern archetype that matches the shots you take — and the ones you'd take if your stick weren't fighting you.
TOE DAGGER
Toe curve · deep depth · open face
Closest retail shape: Toe pattern · ~1/2" depth · 5° loft
Pocket loaded at the toe — toe drags grab, in-tight wristers fly upstairs. Lives and dies on stickhandling skill; backhanders feel weird.
Pattern codes are manufacturer-specific — even within one brand, a code can shift year over year. The archetypes here describe the four traits that actually matter (type, depth, face, toe). Bring the archetype to the wall and read trait values, not stickers.
Each answer nudges the blade toward heel or toe, flat or deep, closed or open. Here is the running tally, and where it puts you among the six patterns.
Disposition
Pattern map
Blade
Also consider
Δ is how far each pattern sits from your score — smaller is closer.
Where the apex sits along the blade decides what the stick wants to do. Pick a family before you pick a pattern.
Once you know them, the pattern wall stops being decorative.
Heel curves cradle the puck near the shaft — predictable, slap-shot friendly. Toe curves load near the tip — quick releases, toe drags, harder backhand. Mid sits between them.
Deeper pockets cup the puck for stickhandling and pull harder on a snap shot. They also grab incoming passes — sometimes too much. 1/4" is shallow; 1/2" is aggressive.
A few degrees of loft turn flat shots into bar-down rippers and short passes into sauce. The cost is keeping shots down on the rush — open faces want to elevate everything.
Square gives you a flat surface for the backhand pass and a wider footprint along the wall. Round shrinks the toe to a point — better for toe drags, slightly fewer tools elsewhere.
What players ask before swapping the blade they've had since pee-wee.
The right blade gets out of your way. Programs build the stride, the shot and the engine behind them — scheduled around your week.
