Divide and conquer.

Creating offence off the rush is a major piece of a team’s attack. During the season at the NHL level, rush chances make up about 30% of scoring chances. 

Most teams practice and are familiar with odd-person rushes, but struggle with even-person rushes. Let’s dive deeper into the ways to create offence off of even-person rushes. 

“Divide et impera” – Julius Caesar

Divide and rule or divide and conquer is credited to Phillip II of Macedon. His son learned from him and went on to become Alexander the Great. Later on Julius Caesar and Napoleon both went on to utilize the tactic with great effect. 

The goal is to create a numerical advantage and overwhelm the defenders one at a time. Players seek to create a 2v1 against a defender rather than play two one-on-one matchups.

Majority of defences and players play rush chances in zone coverage (shown as the blue bubble below). Offensively we want to attack those assumptions by either swapping positions or attacking the space vertically (end wall to end wall) instead of horizontally (across the ice, side board to side board).

Typically even-person rushes are simply two one-on-one matchups:

Visualizing an even-person rush when dividing and conquering:

Two specifics we are going to focus on:

1. Cross and drop – The players swap positions and attempt to create confusion in coverage.
2. Overload – The players choose a side and attack vertically together. 

1. Cross and drop

• The puck carrier cuts across the ice and drops the puck to a teammate cutting behind them in the opposite direction. 
• At the moment when the attackers switch sides, the defenders have a decision to make. Do they play man coverage and switch sides or play zone coverage and stay on their side of the ice?
• In that moment there is an opportunity to read the defenders and understand where the opening is. Did both defenders go to one attacker and allow for a mini-breakaway? Did they both go with the same attacker and leave space for a clean shot or net drive?
• Even if defenders have the same understanding they may not be able to physically stay with the offensive players due to speed differential or poor skating.

For the players on offence, there are some keys. Look for these in the video below.

• Puck carrier:
  • Skating toward the opposite defender.
  • Skating in front of their teammate to provide puck protection.
  • Once the puck is dropped, they are attacking the net or are pivoting to open their body up for a quick shot.
• Receiving player:
  • Skating behind the teammate dropping the puck.
  • Being ready to exploit space, whether that be a quick pass or driving the net for a clean shot.

Check out the video for examples:

2. Overload

• The puck carrier moves across the middle of the ice toward a teammate’s defender. The goal is to engage that defender as a perceived threat without driving too far into the zone and eliminating the space behind the defender that a teammate can skate into. Meanwhile, the puck receiver skates beyond the defender to attack the space behind them.
• At that moment when the puck receiver is behind the defender, there is an opportunity to make a pass to them. This can be direct or an area pass for the receiver to skate into.

Here are the keys for the offensive players:

• Puck carrier:
  • Skating toward the opposite defender, but making sure to stay just inside of the blue line or higher up in the offensive zone to allow space behind the defender.
  • Ready at any time to make a pass:
    • Direct pass – Direct on the ice with some pace.
    • Area pass – Into an area where the receiver can skate into the path of the puck.
    • Leading passes – A pass that forces the receiver to skate where the passer intended. This is often needed when a teammate cannot yet to see the play. 
• Receiving player:
  • Timing the zone-entry to gain and maintain speed.
  • Skating into the space behind the defender.
  • Giving a target for a pass so the passer knows where to pass the puck.

Here are some examples:

Both of these above attacking options are great ways to create offence. If you want to think deeper on this then ask yourself: which one is better against zone-coverage? Which one is better against man-coverage?