Exploit the other team's weakness

Exploit the other team's weakness, don't make it your weakness. What do you think works better, 3 on 5, or 5 on 5? It depends on who has the numeric advantage. If both teams have five players, but only three of the five players work the puck, then the opposition has the advantage. Yesterday during a high-school summer league game I had the opportunity to work with four young defense men from four different teams who haven't had much time together as a defensive unit. The defense stayed back and played very conservative, while the forwards had trouble breaking out of their zone effectively. They were watching the defense and played too deep in their own end. On the other end of the ice the forwards had trouble getting the puck deep, and couldn't move the puck around because the defense were split up; one right on the blue line and one still hanging out in the neutral zone. This kind of hockey limits the options of the offense, and allows the opposition to dominate in the offensive zone. Defense needs to get the puck out of their end quickly and move the puck to the forwards as they break down the ice. The wingers need to stay high in their defensive zone and cover the points while moving to keep momentum and curl in and out to pick up a break out pass and move quickly past the other teams defense. The Center can and should help out with the defense, but has to have a lot of speed to help with the break out and can usually trail in as the garbage man on the triangle (high in the slot looking for rebounds or dropped back pucks). Defense needs to get down to the other end very quickly and set-up for shots from the points and help move the puck around the other team by passing and cycling. In other words a team that plays too defensively usually gives up the puck too much. I like a offensively minded defense who exploits these types of weaknesses in the opposition. You can't wait for the other team to do something and hope to react effectively all the time. You need to go get the puck and work together as a unit with your teammates. Now if you haven't practice this with a team, then it's a hard thing to convince players to do because it takes them out of the comfort zone. Unless you have a lot of faith in your teammates getting to the right place at the right time, it can also work against you if you have to look and wait too long to slide the puck around or take a shot. What you can do is play a simple 2-1-2 when your even up with the defense pinching in a few feet when your team has the puck, and drop one D back if the other team takes control. When you are man down, play the box and only play the puck at the corners of the box one defender at a time so that you don't offer up a hole to the other team's open corner. A simple dump and chase and dump and change on the fly will help you tire out the other team's defense if you do it right, but remember to dump the puck away from the other team's defense and move in quickly to take control of the puck. Remember the simple Puck/Boards/Net you should have learned in squirts? Keep your feet moving. Any time you stand and watch the puck, you slow your team down. Keep moving even at the points to drag the other team's wingers out of position. Cycle your board side winger and defense man. Set up behind the net and get your players in position to hit the open side of the net. Along the boards use a hip check instead of taking yourself out of the play with a mistimed shoulder check. Keep it simple when you are playing with a new team until you get a chance to work things out out in practice. You should still find that your basic skills are the most important part of your game. A player who can skate, shoot, stick handle, and knows how to play his position will often do well in almost any situation. You've got to hustle, and you've got to have heart. One last thing, drink some water! I heard some really strange reasons why high school players don't need to drink water during a game. I don't believe any of them...drink your water. It was a good bunch of players yesterday, they listened well, and tried everything we asked them to do. They might not realize it yet, but having coach Vanhorn on the bench leading the team will only make them better players. They just have to listen to him. He's a great coach, and we need more coaches out there like him. It will be interesting to see what some of these players take back to their own teams when the regular season starts.