As Atticus gets older and his skills begin to regress, he needs to put in more work to keep those skills at an elite level. He can no longer focus solely on advanced drills. He now needs to put some time into the fundamentals to keep them fresh. To do that, Atticus works with his fellow forwards as well as goalies Jon St. Ark and Bernard Lodge which also helps them sharpen their own skills.

One of the drills that allows Atticus to work on a number of fundamentals is a variation of the pit drill. In this drill, he can work on his puck control, puck handling, puck protection, stickhandling, getting to open space, shooting, and passing. Three or four players gather inside a faceoff circle with four other players set up outside the circle. On the whistle, each player inside the circle needs to maintain control of the puck while jockeying for position facing the goalie. The players outside the circle need to quickly pass a puck around the circle without going inside of it. On the next whistle, the player inside the circle that was able to gain the position facing the goalie must accelerate toward the goalie and take a shot. Likewise, the player outside the circle that ends up with the puck must also accelerate toward the goalie and take a shot.

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