Defencemen play a key role on the attack in the modern game.
I held a fairly informal gathering for minor hockey coaches in our dressing room here in Winkler a few weeks ago before the world shut down, and I left with two primary takeaways:
- Small town independent pizza should be declared an essential service
- There are still too many young defencemen who are only playing D because they’re going to get more ice time
The presentation I gave demonstrated evidence of defencemen creating offence all over the ice. More and more these days our game is involving five players on defence as well as the attack.
Why? Because it’s tougher to defend, and it works.
The coaches at the seminar were pumped to go back to their young players and tell them to get involved in the offence.
Today I want to focus on the steps that occur in the offensive zone. Point of importance: time in the offensive zone is only possible after an attack, which is only possible when your team retrieves the puck in the D-zone or neutral zone.
So, to get offensive zone time, you’ve got get there first. Here are four offensive zone tactics for defencemen, using examples from the Winkler Flyers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.
1. Joining the rush
There’s nothing better than a quick transition out of the neutral zone. Here, #4 Trent Sambrook recognizes the break and joins to collect a drop pass and bury the first goal of his junior career at 17 years old.
Same idea in this next clip, except it starts from good defensive zone coverage in front of the net. The puck is retrieved and everyone starts pumping their legs to get up the ice as fast as they can.
The Portage Terriers were one of the best teams in the country, but it’s hard to defend when everyone, goalie included, gets up in the rush. That’s actually the second defenceman, #24 Kyle Lamoureux, driving the net along with another forward.
Good thing we scored.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the defenceman who scores, either. Here’s another clip with Lamoureux driving the net and giving the defenceman a tough decision to make. No assist for the Lamoureux here, good thing kids these days don’t care about points.
2. Low to high: Get the D involved
If you don’t score off the rush, what’s next? Our offensive zone relied a lot on our defencemen to get involved from the blue line. We used various strategies depending on the teams we were playing or certain points of the year, but it’s no secret that if you can get the defence involved, it creates matchup issues for the opponent.
What you’ll see in this first clip, however, is that the defence aren’t always in control of whether or not they get the puck. Watch #6 Garrett Szeremley below present a good outlet and simply get his shot through.
Easy, right? Well, it’s not always as simple as telling the forwards to pass the puck to the D. That goal is the result of drills in practice that help the D shoot quickly and accurately, as well as a hundred hours of a small area game called Bobby Orr. Plus, the forwards need to have the courage to go to the net and take away the goaltender’s eyes.
Same idea, same game, same player, same play:
Here’s another example from Portage just to show I’m not biassed. After a simple forecheck, the Portage forwards retrieve the puck and go low to high. The keys here are that the forwards immediately go to the net, and the defenceman doesn’t dust the puck off.
It’s a simple tactic, but it takes skill from the defence, courage from the forwards, and an understanding from everyone on the ice about the plan of attack.
3. Weak side D
Using your weak-side defenceman on the blue line is a clear reaction to how most teams play in the D-zone these days.
Lots of teams collapse their weak-side winger to the house so they can outnumber forecheckers in the corner and defend against anything silly happening in the high danger area. What that often leaves exposed is the weak-side defenceman.
Again, these are simple clips, but they take into account what they defending team is doing, and then it’s up to the D to get their shot through and the forwards to take away the goalie’s eyes.
Same idea on the next one, as #6 Garrett Szeremley puts himself in a great spot to creep in. You know what’s going to happen, I know what’s going to happen, and the Dauphin d-zone is actually in pretty good shape, but they don’t have eyes in the back of their heads.
We don’t even really have a good net presence here — it’s the Dauphin defender who ends up screening his goalie.
One more:
These clips prove a few things:
- Your offensive zone doesn’t have to be complicated
- Commit to a style that creates results more often than not
- Work to get your forwards and defencemen on the same page
But you didn’t come here just for safe and easy, right?
4. Diving in, high cycles, high risk
It takes some courage from the coach to get your defenders off the blue line, but man it can create some fun results.
What I’ve learned from this style of play is it’s easy to create decision paralysis in your players. Should I stay or should I go? Should I high cycle down the boards? Should I dive through the middle?
As a coach you’ve got to be ready to answer those questions, and if you can and all five players can work together in the offensive zone, then your crowd is in for some fun, high event hockey at both ends of the rink.
Watch #6 Szeremley dive in through the middle, but take notice that the clip starts with a low to high pass from the puck-carrying forward.
Last one, because I couldn’t leave out a clip with both D activating and scoring back door off a faceoff play. This is called the El Chapo.
