Daniel Bochner looks at various ways coaches can help their defencemen develop the skills necessary to succeed on the offensive blueline.

Offensive defensemen are coveted – that statement is as true today as it was 50 years ago.

Defensemen who can contribute offensively, yet are still as reliable as ever in their own zone, act as a cheat code for a team. Daniel Bochner, Assistant Coach and Player Development Coach with SKA Saint Petersburg in the Kontinental Hockey League, is doing his best to produce O from the D, as you’ll see in his Virtual Hockey Summit presentation.

Bochner, a product of Toronto, Ontario, and the first Canadian coach ever hired to work full-time within the Russia Ice Hockey Federation, looks at various ways coaches can help their defencemen develop the skills necessary to succeed on the offensive blueline within the modern game of hockey.

His 25-minute presentation is broken into four key areas; 1) – Reviewing the development opportunities available to defensemen on the offensive blue line; 2) – Looking at technical skating development and examines various movement patterns defensemen can utilize on the offensive blueline; 3) – Walking through the development process and discusses how to approach acquiring technical and tactical skills to best aid players in implementing them into their game; 4) – Looking at some important considerations you should take into account when working through a coaching or development process with players.

SKA Saint Petersburg currently leads the KHL’s Bobrov Division with 54 points; the team is second in the division with 119 goals for, but is third overall in the league at +37 in goals for minus against this season. Saint Petersburg defensemen have contributed 52 points from the blueline thus far.