Відео

That's great, like I mention in the video the triangle can shrink, or grow, or rotate, or stretch. I would say within reason a closer or tighter triangle would provide better puck support and higher percentage passes, but the downside is the tighter the easier to defend. So, let the situation and your "hockey sense" dictate how your attack triangle "looks", be creative. Thanks for watching and commenting, I appreciate it.

Awesome to hear Cape Town has beer league hockey, I never considered ice hockey would be popular in South Africa. Thanks so much for watching and for commenting, I hope you find some useful information in my videos.

Thanks jaydrfish, I started out doing these videos for a team of 11 year olds, so I wanted to make everything as clear and simple as possible. I'm happy you are finding them useful. Thanks for watching and commenting,

Thanks Bray, there really is alot of simple stuff that, if you use it, can make you a solid defenseman, and if you are already good can push you to that next level.

Really good video! Question or point of debate for the comments @ 2:00 … “we generally want to receive the rush not attack the rush … we want to drift back …”. While I understand what you’re driving at with this concept, I’ve seen too many young defenseman who will drift back into the lap of their goalie and never “step up” and protect their blue line. While I agree that the “all or nothing” poke check or body isn’t the best in many situations, it’s frustrating to see young defensemen just allow the puck carrier to skate unimpeded for fear of making a mistake. It’s not so bad before the offensive player can really shoot, but as shots gets better - and puck carriers become more dynamic - doesn’t it become more of a necessity to try slow them down, cause an offsides, etc? Again, I’m not disagreeing, just wondering on your thoughts. When I played I was taught to be ultra aggressive in defending our blue line, and was taught that we never allow a player to skate unimpeded over it when at all possible. Again, great video and I’d love to hear your thoughts on my comment.

You make a really good point, and one that I think is well worth discussing and for especially young defensemen to understand. I commonly hear coaches and parents yell "step up" when a defenseman is defending an attack and in turn, the defenseman stops or worse goes forward lunging at the attacker, and it's this tactic that I am suggesting to avoid. As you said, its the all-or-nothing aspect, you get one chance and if you miss (which you more often than not do in this situation) you are completely out of the play and if it was a 1v1 or 2v1 its now a 1v0 or 2v0 on your goalie. I prefer to let the attack come to my D-men rather than have my D-men attack the rusher, and instead of "step up" I teach "gap up", a subtle difference but I think an important one. We don't want to stop or go forward as "step up" implies, we let the gap close and by the time the attacker crosses the blue line we should have let that gap close to the point that we can use our body to impede his path to the net or body check him, or use our stick to steer him toward the boards, or to pokecheck or go "stick on puck" if they try to shoot. As long as the defenseman keeps drifting backwards they stay in the play and get another chance to pokecheck, steer, or hit. Your point on backing into your goalie's lap, giving a free zone entry, or a free shot on net is very valid though, and I'm not suggesting you do that. You should "gap up" and be using your stick and body and not be so passive to allow that to happen. That being said in a worst case scenario if I have my choice between lunging at an attacker at the blue line and missing and giving up a breakaway versus backing in a little too far and giving a head-on shot with my D-man there to possibly deflect the shot or defend any rebound I would happily take the latter, and I think my goalie would agree. The particular situation obviously dictates how we defend as well; is my D partner with me? are there a backcheckers? etc. I mean if its a 1v2 (one attacker vs 2 D) I tell one of my D to receive the rush and the other to flat-out jump the attacker at the blue line. If its a 2v2 or 3v2 I'm alot more aggressive gapping-up as well than I would be 1v1 or 2v1. Great discussion though, the take-away for me is receive the rush, gap-up, but don't be too passive and back yourself right into your goalie without engaging the attacker. Thanks for watching and generating the discussion.

Thanks for asking. In the context of this video the center and left wing would be the first ones leaving the zone on the breakout, with the left wing ideally furthest up ice to give the center a lead pass option, and the right wing that got the initial pass from the defenseman will probably be the last forward to leave the zone. This sets up nice with the LW driving wide on zone entry with the puck, center driving the net, and the trailing RW being the 3rd man high for an attack triangle. Of course there are other breakout systems, but this is a good tried-and-true method especially for younger ages. Please check out my other videos on breakouts for each position, attack triangle, etc..

I am a big fan of yours too!