DEFENDING 1-on-1’s
DEFENSEMEN PLAYING THE 1V1 RUSH
(Dec 18, 2017)
Defending The Gap
The most important part of good 1v1 play is gap control.
Normally, your goal should be to close this gap to within TWO stick lengths (close enough to poke check) by the time you’re in your defensive zone
When you find yourself a significant distance from the puck carrier, standing still is not usually an option.
Instead, you want to close the distance to the player as soon as possible and execute a transition or turn to match their speed
DEFENDING THE RUSH
UNDERSTANDING RUSH LEVERAGE
(Dec 26, 2021)
The first element to playing transition/rushes is the concept of leverage, inside & outside.
When a defenseman fails to establish leverage, they allow the offensive player to dictate what is going to happen next. This puts the defender in a reactive state. “Squaring up” rather than establishing proper leverage is a poor tactic for forcing or influencing play where you want it to go.
DEFENDING THE PASS
DEFENDING THE PASS
The way in which a team defends against shot assists (remember from above – this will likely account for positioning, getting sticks in lanes, giving your opponent time on the puck, etc.) is both highly repeatable and predictive of future goals against. When we compare it to a team’s overall shots against (Corsi), we see a much stronger relationship in both repeatability and predictability.
Identifying traits at the team level that suppress goals against can help us better evaluate both how teams should play defense and which players suppress these types of chances.
Measuring how well a team suppresses shot assists is a better predictor of goals against than simply looking at total shots. Teams that do this well do several things that you hear coaches discuss: keeping an active stick, getting in lanes, checking and pressuring your opponent effectively.
DEFENDING 2-on-1’s
EXECUTING 2-ON-1’s
In today’s NHL, an odd man situation is often a team’s best chance to score,
Secondary forwards will typically skate stride for stride with a defender, which makes the d-man’s job a lot easier if the puck carrier and the open man are all on the same plane.
WHY DEFENSEMEN SLIDE ON 2-ON-1’S
The defensemen should always try to start out in the middle of the ice. Once the d-man has that mid-lane in the defensive zone he can start to read the angle and the proper play. However, he really can’t make a move until the puck carrier skates through the faceoff dots.
· Option #1 is to be responsible for the player without the puck and leave the puck carrier for the goaltender to handle.
· Option #2 at the “go zone” is to angle the carrier wide and at the last second, lay flat on your belly with your skates facing the goal line to take away the passing lane.
GAME THEORY – 2-ON-1’S
Taking the pass and trusting your goalie to stop the shot is an idea that’s drilled into defencemen’s minds from a young age, and on its face it makes a lot of sense – we know that shots of passes go in more often than those off shots, so if you’re looking to minimize goals against (a pretty good idea for a defencemen) your best bet is to take away the higher percentage play.
defenders should play the pass roughly 92% of the time and defend the shooter just 8% of the time.
On the other hand, shooters should take the shot 82% of the time, while trying the pass just 18% of the time.
PLAYING THE 2-ON-1 RUSH
(May 5, 2019)
The basic idea of a 2v1 is to limit the puck carrier’s options. This can be done several ways.
The most important step is to match their speed and position yourself to see both players.
Your first priority is to take away the pass, but it should not be your only goal. You don’t want to simply allow a skater to have a clean breakaway on the goaltender.
As the shooter moves closer to the net, it’s important that your body position starts to make them feel pressure and prevents their ability to gain space in the middle of the ice, and make any lateral movements prior to the shot that can challenge the goaltender to move side-to-side.
BREAKING DOWN 2-ON-1’S
(Jan 10, 2021)
On an odd-man rush, the puck carrier is the key decision-maker. They are the ones who choose to pass or shoot.
Work to and stay inside of the dots.
Puck carriers want to remain a dual-threat capable of releasing a shot or pass.
Slow down
Slowing down allows players to create time to make the best decision as to whether to shoot or pass depending on what the defense offers.
Early pass
A recent trend that we heartily endorse is passing before the top of the circles with the goal of disrupting how a defender plays the rush. Often, this leads the defender into an earlier and more difficult decision, thus creating more space and options for the attacking team.
BLOCKING THE PUCK
BLOCKED SHOTS AND STANDINGS POINTS
(Dec 2009)
There does not seem to be much of a correlation between blocked shots and points in the standings. If anything, it appears that since the lockout bad teams seem to be “better” at blocking shots than the top teams.
Teams who lead the league in blocked shots since the lockout generally have the puck less than their opposition
It is hard to argue that blocking shots is a bad thing. I suppose the relationship between shot blocking and points in the standings may be best explained by the old adage, “quality over quantity.”
SHOTS BLOCKED AND TOTAL SHOTS AGAINST
(Dec 2009)
The correlation between shots blocked since the lockout and shots against since the lockout is .464. That is a notable correlation. So, the teams that have blocked more shots during the lockout have a higher propensity of allowing more shots against.
If you can excel at both shots against and shots blocked you should be in good shape—if you have solid goaltending.
BLOCKED SHOTS - LUCK OR SKILL
(May 2010)
there is no evidence for offensive skill in Missed Shots beyond what we’d expect from binomial chance variation.
What about on the defensive side? Do teams have the ability to induce missed shots?
I found similar results as above
Once again, if the percentage of blocked shots amongst total offensive shot attempts differs widely by team, the distribution of BSF% should look a lot different than it would if teams were just flipping coins. But it doesn’t.
What about on the defensive end? Do teams have the ability to block a persistently higher number of opposing shot attempts than other teams?
It appears they do.
Teams appear to have the ability to block shots, beyond what we’d expect from chance alone.
From an offensive standpoint, directing shots at net that get blocked appears to be random.
On the defensive side, the ability to block the other teams’ shots appears to be a skill.
LOOKING INTO SHOT BLOCKS AND MISSES
Forwards score on roughly 5.5% more of their shots than defensemen, and roughly 4.2% more of their Fenwick attempts. This is an important fact to keep in mind-blocking a forward’s shot is much more valuable than blocking a defenseman’s.
We can also look at the numbers another way, breaking down what percentage of each event comes from shot attempts taken by either forwards or defensemen. While forwards take 74.7% of the shots, they only record 68.7% of the missed shots and 58.9% of the blocked shots, while accounting for 86.9% of the goals scored.
The majority of the time when a forward takes a shot and it’s blocked it’s a defenseman doing the blocking (78.7% of the time). Similarly, when a defenseman’s shot is blocked, it’s more likely to be blocked by a forward (56.9%) than an opposing defenseman (43.1%). In total, defenseman are doing most of the blocking, accounting for 64.0% of the total shot blocks, with the majority of these blocks coming on shots taken by forwards.
We also see that a team’s ability to block shots from opposing forwards appears to be slightly more persistent than their ability to block their shots from defensemen.
Forwards do seem to have some influence over whether or not their shots are blocked, while for defensemen it’s much more random.
Without examining the individual level data, we can’t know whether the repeatability is due to the system a coach has put in place, or some innate ability of the players themselves.
POSSESSION INDEPENDENT SHOT BLOCKING AND HITTING
There isn’t a massive correlation between hitting efficiency/shot blocking efficiency and points or wins, but unlike with conventional real-time stats, the correlation is positive. That means that teams that are better at hitting and blocking shots – rather than those who hit or block more shots overall – tend to win slightly more games.
hitting and shot blocking are ends unto themselves, but that they’re a way to recover the puck, to prevent scoring chances, and to tilt the ice in your team’s favor.
WHEN SHOULD TEAMS ATTEMPT TO BLOCK SHOTS
We only net5ued to be successful 53.6% of the time to make a block attempt worthwhile.
The cost of allowing a shot on goal is almost certainly greater and that you’d have to be a a pretty bad shot blocker to make it worthwhile to not attempt a block.
DEFENDING THE NET
Every team gets hemmed in its own zone. It is an unavoidable consequence of playing a competitive hockey game. But the best squads take care of business around the net, which means allowing their goaltender to have an opportunity to make the initial save by giving him the best sightline possible.
If you are a center or a defenseman, that requires boxing out, and it is your duty to eliminate second-chance opportunities by taking away your opponents’ sticks.
FRONTING
the net zone (as diagramed above) is the area around the crease, which is generally the responsibility of the second defensemen back (in this case the RD). This player’s job is to protect the slot at all costs.
The first tactic for defending your crease is called ‘fronting.’ Fronting is a defensive strategy where the good guys’ defensemen will stand in front of enemy forwards (shown above). The idea is to block shooting lanes, passing lanes and prevent scoring chances right in the crease.
Normally you wouldn’t deploy this strategy for shorter goaltenders
The other defensive strategy for the net zone is called net-side positioning (shown above). Net-side positioning is when the good guys’ defensemen is positioned between the goaltender and the enemy forward, who is trying to plant himself in front of the net to block the keeper’s field of vision.
At 6’3 a goalie should be able to see over most screens, so there really isn’t a need for net-side defense
NET SIDE PRESENCE
Net-Side Positioning: the blue liners are now behind the men in front, tying them up.
In theory, the adjustment will limit the number of rebound chances and in tight goals.
When you add in a defensive system where there should always be a man in front, you have a system designed to limit high quality chances.
REBOUNDS
EVALUATING DEFENSIVE PLAY FOLLOWING A SHOT ATTEMPT
We’ll start by dividing up all shot attempts into two categories:
Initial Shot Attempts, which are the first shot attempts that occur following a shift start or faceoff; and
Follow-Up Shot Attempts, which are all the other shot attempts that occur between an initial shot attempt and a shift end or stoppage.
iSAA60 can measure things like how well a defencemen protects their blueline or is able to keep skaters to the outside on the rush, while fSAA60 should give us a sense of how well they recover after a shot attempt and whether they’re able to establish defensive possession in the scramble following a save.
Although most players see only 20% of their total TOI come in “follow-up time” (i.e. 20% of their ice time is after a shot attempt against), and 27% of their total shot attempts classified as follow-up shots,
a defender’s control over the number of follow-up shots he allows is much greater than his influence on the number of initial shots against.
CAN DEFENSEMEN CONTROL REBOUND CHANCES
Even though they are the worst among the Canucks, Sbisa and Bartkowski still only allow 1.4 rebound shots per 60 minutes of 5v5 ice time. If they’re playing about 15 minutes per game at 5v5, that’s only 0.35 rebound shots per game. Now, I’ve never played the game, but why do important people think this is such a valuable skill?
In the overall scheme of things, suppressing rebound opportunities doesn’t really have much of an impact over the course of an entire season.
Even if it was important, there’s no indication that this is a repeatable skill for defensemen.
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