Utilize multiple drills either as part of your warm-up, stations, or on half or full ice.
When I wrote about teaching systems while maintaining creativity, I touched upon a breakout drill I consistently use at practice. One question that arose more than once from that article was how do we progressively teach that breakout so as they learn it, it can become more consistent?
We do this by utilizing multiple drills either as part of our warm-up, stations, or utilizing a half or full ice sheet. Each progression builds on the last and by the time they are running the full breakout, they have so many repetitions on each part that it almost becomes second nature when they put it all together.
Drills created with Hockey Coach Vision.
The Warm-Up
This drill doubles as a good goalie warmup while also working on a simple breakout pass. On the whistle, the defender skates behind the net and picks up a puck. At the same time, a forward is skating and opening up on the board to take a pass. Once the pass is complete, the forward skates out of the zone and reenters for a shot on net, while the defender goes around the forwards in line and attempts to defend.
When first running this drill, you can remove the attacking defender and just have them make the pass and get back in line. This re-enforces the pass, and then you can layer on the attack later.
On each whistle, alternating sides go.
Winning the Blue Line
One aspect that holds up any good breakout is once the pass is made, you most likely must beat the defender at the point.
In games, we noticed a consistent issue of trying to either skate around the defender or not chipping the puck well generating a turnover that puts the puck back in deep, or worse, on net.
So, with this drill, we teach them how to chip it off the boards creating a bounce pass to another forward driving out of the zone.
It runs at both ends of the ice simultaneously and begins on the whistle with a hard pass across the ice to the forward on the board who skates up, while being reminded to not be too tight on boards (for a good bounce pass) and chips the puck by the coach who is playing defender.
The forward who made the pass is, at the same time, skating out of the zone to pick up the puck and then you have a 2-0 into the zone.
As a progression, you can add coaches to play defence in the zone as they come in on the attack.
Putting the Basics Together
Now we can begin to put the steps together. First without pressure, then you can add pressure that forces decision making down low and at the blueline.
With this drill, you need one net set up in the defensive zone and two in the offensive zone. With a single file line at centre ice, the coach will send a puck to either the left or right side of the net (then alternating sides each time). Three players will enter the zone in the order of defence, winger, centre.
Defence will grab the puck and skate it behind the net and pass to either open forward (without pressure, we usually go with the wing). Once the pass it made and the two forwards begin their attack on the opposite net, the defence changes teams and backchecks. This ensures the two forwards skate hard the whole way.
The Continuous Breakout – Putting it all Together
Finally, we advance to 5-on-5 hockey that focuses on the breakout. To begin, you will put three full lines on the ice. One in each zone.
In this example, the red team begins by dumping the puck into the zone and then begins their attack with the intent to score against black team. The black team’s job is to break out the puck. If they succeed in the breakout, the red teams then stay in the zone and awaits their next opponent.
The black team will skate the puck through centre ice and then dump it in against the green team. Now the black team enters on the attack while the green team breaks the puck out, then dumping it in on the black team in the opposite zone.
You can later remove the dump in and have the attacking team carry the puck into the zone, making it more game-like. However, to get the drill moving and the fundamentals of the breakout down, the dump in helps.
If the attacking team scores, the defensive team runs a breakout unopposed and begins their attack on the other end.
The progressions don’t have to stay in a strict order either. Once the team knows all the drills, we regularly rotate them into our plans to add repetition and help them continue to improve on each aspect.
With these drills, we have been able to build a strong foundational breakout and then build upon each one through various decision making scenarios that force them to look to the centre for the breakout pass, or even the winger sending the puck back to the defence if pressure comes too quickly.
Yet, through these progressions, we find the younger players understand each layer better and we see a much stronger result.
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