Preventing Odd-man Rushes

One of my NEHI HS Prep assistant coaches called me one day with something he’d noticed in some of our closer games. (Actually, anything that goes wrong tends to only become noticeable when we lose or when a game is close. Seldom can anything be learned from a lopsided win.)

Both of the points made by my assistant were taken seriously, and they were both worth talking to our players about (over and over and over again). So, I did just that the next week — going over the following, in anticipation of a really tough game the next weekend.

~ Dennis Chighisola

Rightly so, my able assistant felt our next opponents were going to be really quick at transitioning onto the attack.  And both of his observations had to do with our once-in-awhile tendency to allow quick odd-man rushes towards our goal:

• There had been times when our defensemen had headed to their bench before they’d made sure the puck was buried fairly deep in our opponents’ end.  And that’s an absolute must.  What happens a lot of times is that a D gets it into his head that he’s going to get off the ice at the first opportunity.  With that, he sorta guesses that the time is right, even when it’s not.  Sometimes a teammate’s dump-in initially looks good, the defenseman starts off the ice, and then the puck doesn’t find its way deep into the zone.  At yet other times a defenseman wrongly thinks a teammate is going to carry the puck safely and deep, and he never follows the puck long enough to ensure that actually happens.  In either case, a turn-over in neutral-ice — or high in the oppositions’ zone — provides those opponents the chance for a quick counterattack and a man-advantage rush.
• Actually, my assistant’s second point involves the comments I just made about puckhandlers erring in neutral-ice or at the oppositions’ blue line.  But, let me deal with this in two parts…

1. As I point-out in my video on “Dumping the Puck” (I really suggest you watch this), he absolutely must get the puck all the way through traffic and deep into an offensive corner.
2. As importantly, puckhandlers must make wise decisions as they carry through neutral-ice.  Headmanning the puck is always the first option, and carrying further would be the second.  As a player carriers, however, he should only do so if resistance is light.  A player should never try to carry when out-manned by the defenders.  No, the wise thing to do then is to dump the puck.

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