Reply To: Defensive Zone Overload – Swarming and Other Team Play Ideas

[DaveM]

Tom – I agree, the rotations shouldn't be that hard, but when a smart and skilled team forces you to make them quickly things can break down long enough to create good opportunities. For example:

– If the puck is moved to the far (weak-side) corner AND the offensive team anticipates, their off side D wins the race by pinching (I see a lot of D playing wide – at the dots – for this). F3 is now actively involved in the low defensive battles might not be as skilled 1-on-1 as other F's who are frequently centers.

– When this (above) happens the net front can be uncovered for a brief moment if F3 pursues quickly. This creates an opportunity for a set play into the slot if your D or F are slow getting back to the front.

OR

– If F3 does NOT vacate the slot until another player fills it, then the offensive team regains possession and sets up a similar attack from the opposite corner. This can wear your team down in a 2nd period by making changes a challenge due to sustained possession.

Finally

– If the offensive team uses the net effectively as a shield they can also put a lot of pressure on your net-front D to make the right decision when to move post to post in front of the net and catch pursuing behind, effectively losing d-side positioning. This is especially true if you get an F covering the net-front after repeated rotations.

The biggest challenges we had was that our F2 & F3 were often hesitant to go into the corner and be first man in on the defensive battle when this happened. The rotation that had to happen along with this is: F3 engages in the corner => F2 drops into the slot until F1 (original defensive F) returns and switches with him => then F2 moves up and over to cover strong side point. This was a big change for our forwards who are not used to having to think and rotate so actively on defense. Unfortunately they are products of position specific roles (i.e. left wing covers left point, center helps out down low) rather than having roles for F1, 2 & 3 as they come into the DZ in any order. Our less-than-perfect passing and defense not accustomed to joining the rush on the breakout posed challenges too.

I'm always amazed at how quickly and fluidly NHL teams can make these decisions and rotations, and while I don't like to watch dump and chase hockey I think I better understand how some teams are really focused on getting set up below the goal line (which also opens up their points a lot!) I also notice a lot of players being good at establishing body position in front of the net in a way that allows them to be effective at maintaining puck possession for their team too. A big guy like Joe Thornton, for example, can have a good net-front presence but also be positioned to get to any soft chips behind the net first. And then he's deadly finding any gaps in defensive rotation with his passing or set up a cycle-type play all over again.

Watching it on TV is not the best way to observe all this unfortunately as the field of vision is often pretty narrow so you can't see what all 5 players are doing, so I'm envious of your season ticket holder status! Thanks for keeping the site going – Dave
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Dave, most if not all NHL teams play F1-F2-F3 in their zone with the first forward back having low coverage. The attacking team usually cycles F1-F2-F3 as well so the low F and 2 D have to play a man to man on the strong side and the weak side F2 has net front coverage. Lots of goals are scored from the high slot when the net front D2 stays near the crease and moves out too late to get to the attacking F3 who gets a shot off before D2 has moved out close enough. So if you are playing the man to man 3 on 3 the swarming shouldn't be that difficult. It is simply the F3 who is covering the strong side point giving closer support down the boards to the battle along the boards. (F1 low, F2 mid slot, F3 puck side point as they funnel back into the zone.)

I can see where there can be problems on the rotation but if they react quickly and play on the D side with the stick on the puck and the players away from the puck stay with their man it should work ok if the teams are comparable. I think the problem is if the weak side D insists on covering net front even when the other team has a 3 man cycle. Then everyone is switching all of the time.

The modern game demands that all the players learn both the offensive and defensive skills.
Thoughts
Tom