These 3 drills really put a lot of work into creating scoring chances by starting with smart plays in your own defensive zone.
Creating offense can be a struggle for any team, but generating it out of a breakout from your own zone continues to be harder and harder as the players get bigger and faster.
In previous articles, I have discussed working on the breakout and building upon that breakout through the season, but these three drills below, while touching on aspects of the breakout itself, add a few new elements.
The first two will focus on using your goalie to generate the breakout that sends your players flying down into the other zone to attack the net, and the last will work on the player’s endurance to skate the length of the ice to join a play forming on the other end.
Most of my drills are station based, but once in a while, utilizing all of the ice helps create a game like experience.
Drills created with Hockey Coach Vision.
2v1 Goalie Breakout Warmup
This drill we use more to warm up the players and goalie. A 2v1 you can run in both ends at the same time just timing out the starts and stops with a whistle.
With two forwards starting on one side of the blue line and a defender on the other, the first forward should rim the puck around the boards for the goalie to come out and play.
In older groups, you can even have the forward pass to your goalie (if that’s part of your game), but for younger players, the last thing I want is our players sending passes to the goalie and making the pass too sloppy leading to an own goal.
The two forwards come down low and the goalie makes a pass to the most available player.
The defender skates out and decides which player or area he will be covering and gaps up as they head down the ice for a 2 on 1. You can encourage players to stay on one side of the ice so as to avoid the same player happening on the other end of the ice if you decide to run it in both directions.
2v1 Flow Drill with Goalie Breakout
This drill builds well off the warmup and works as a follow up drill that then puts a little more speed and emphasis on all players involved. This again runs on full ice, but can easily be modified as a half ice drill. In the video, you see the drill running full ice out of both ends.
This drill was introduced to us by former Chicago Blackhawks goalie and current goalie coach for the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, Jeff Glass. When Coach Glass brought it to us, he mentioned that when training at the highest levels, he tells goalies, “the difference between a good goalie in the NHL and a great goalie, is that great goalies can handle the puck.”
Choosing when to introduce that skill is on the coach, but he commented once goalies show some competency, it’s a good idea to start introducing the skill to start that creation of a great goalie.
To start, you have forwards on both ends of the blueline, dumping the puck in for the goalie to retrieve. The defender at center will come down with the forwards and take the pass from the goalie, before quickly making an outlet pass to one of the forwards.
Once that play is made, the defender now becomes defense against the two forwards. The forwards need to continue out of the zone, making a pass to the other defending player standing at the far blueline. That defender makes a pass back to one of the forwards who turn and re-enter the same zone for a 2 on 1.
Right after the second defender passes, the other side of the ice should dump their puck in and start the same drill. A new player should take over the opposite blue line to accept the pass and then help begin the drill on the other side.
This drill should flow without the need for whistles.
1v1 to 2v2 Flow Drill
This final drill does not utilize the goalies in the same way as the previous two, but has a much larger emphasis on hard skating and joining the rush.
The drill requires close attention from coaches to blow the first and second whistle to ensure the play happens on time.
This drill starts with a line in all four corners and pucks in opposite corners.
Whistle 1: The first side starts, and the non-puck carrier skates a few strides before catching a pass by the defender with all of the pucks. The forward must skate around the dot outside of the zone before re-entering and the defender needs to either gap up or angle the player off to keep them away from a good shooting lane.
The coach needs to decide at what point the play is dead, leading to the next whistle.
Whistle 2: The same play begins on the other end of the ice, but at the same time, the two players who started the drill must race back to join the play. The first defender is now joining the rush as offensive, and the first forward is now joining as defense.
Once the next whistle is blown, the two original players head back to the line, the remaining two then skate down to the other end to join that play and then on each whistle you have a continuous 2v2 back and forth.
This drill really puts pressure on the skaters to get back as quickly as they can to join the next play. There is a great element of conditioning in this one, as well as knowing who their teammate is by paying attention to who has the puck and who doesn’t on their hustle down the ice.
We used this one last to also encourage being vocal and letting their new teammate know they are with them since they are coming up from behind.
These three drills really put a lot of work into creating scoring chances by starting with smart plays in your own defensive zone and introducing goalies to handling the puck safely behind the net and helping generate plays.
3D Animated Drills are powered by the Hockey Coach Vision App. Test the FREE HCV APP and access 100+ Animated Drills: https://hockeycoachvision.com/
