These drills offer a great way to get your team skating hard and attacking the offensive zone.
Not every team is fortunate enough to have full ice every practice, so a lot of coaches (like myself) work on aspects of our game in small areas. That is why when we get opportunities to run full ice drills, we must take advantage and ensure we’re running specific drills that mimic games as much as possible and develop skills utilized best in a full ice game.
Recently, rushing the puck has been a challenge and with a full ice practice in the cards for us, we wanted to focus on taking the puck deep from our zone with speed and getting it up the ice. To do that, we used a few progressive drills to instill habits, confidence, and then challenges.
Drills created with Hockey Coach Vision.
1 on 1 Four Pass
This first one is difficult solely based on the passes and as it gets faster, the passing needs to be faster and even more accurate.
This runs both sides at the same time and sees two opposite forwards leave the blueline and pass to a player directly in front of them. Those two players receiving the pass then quickly pass the puck to their opposing player along the same blue line while the original skaters head deep into the zone, circling out back towards the neutral zone.
As the third player gets the pass, they will pass back along the same line. Now, the original receiver has the puck and hits the original forward with a hard cross ice pass as that skater then takes the puck in for a shot.
2 on 2 Deep Swing
This drill builds upon the last one, this time sending two forwards skating into the zone deep and looking to the coach who will pick the forward most ready to receive a pass and hit them with it. Those two players will head down the ice to make an attack on the net.
They will not be unopposed, however, because at the same time, two defenders will swing deep into their zone and then hustle towards the neutral zone to gap up and play the game as a 2 on 2.
Ensuring both sets of skaters go deep towards the hash marks allows them time to get speed, and forces the defenders to rush to gap up and try to control the play.
Detroit Rush Modified
This next drill is a modification based on a popular Detroit drill that sees a 2 on 2 rush down the ice with one defender in front and the other backchecking. However, in the original version, the forward along the wall starts skating from a stop with the puck to kick the drill off.
This didn’t seem enough like a game and didn’t involve enough puck movement. To modify it, we moved the pucks up the blueline and asked the defender to pass to his defender. As the pass starts, the two forwards start to leave the zone and the second defender hits one of them with a breakout pass before changing teams and starting the backcheck.
This now has passes happening from all four players involved, a decision from the second defender on who to pass to, and has skaters in motion to catch the pass.
This drill can also run out of both sides of the ice at the same time to have 8 skaters in motion at all times.
The progression of these drills from 1 on 0, to then two different 2 on 2 versions builds a great foundation for puck rushes down the ice. Not to mention all involve a good amount of skating down the ice, checking off a conditioning box without a meaningless bag skate.
These drills offer a great way to get your team skating hard and attacking the offensive zone.
3D Animated Drills are powered by the Hockey Coach Vision App. Test the FREE HCV APP and access 100+ Animated Drills: https://hockeycoachvision.com/
