I thought I’d spend some time to analyze the Flames breakout and zone entry strategy that seems to have been figured out by NHL scouts around the league. IMO it’s one of the bigger culprits that have a hand in the team’s scoring, and vis a vis their confidence and swagger. So far, the effort is now there. The goaltending (kinda) is now there. What isn’t there yet is Hartley’s adjustments to how other teams have started playing the Flames. The zone entries, scoring and confidence will return when he does.
The stretch pass / defenceman carry has been figured out. Hartley’s strategy is to either have a forward tip it in with some speed, or have the defenceman carry over the center line and dump it in, chasing it himself.
The counter to that: a
proper neutral zone trap.
An opposing center and another winger would be taking away the middle of the ice, the first forward being there to take away the center ice pass and force the puck up the boards.
If the D to D pass gets off instead, the opposite forward circles in to pressure.
This forces the puck-mover to try to find an opening in the neutral zone for a stretch pass or a tip in.
More often than not, they would have to go for the tip in - but in the Flames case, none of the forwards have the neutral zone speed to beat out the one ‘safe’ defender to the puck on a dump in.
If you take a look at the successful zone entries we’ve had, they’re either a result of the opponent getting impatient and losing their man, or being backed off due to high speed through the neutral zone.
(Capitals have the long change, so they have to play the rush much more conservatively.)
The neutral zone trap is designed to completely slow down the play in that zone, forcing the dump in which the lone defender can beat to. The workaround to that is to have a forward tip in a breaking defenceman’s pass, but another forward has to have enough speed to beat the opposing defender back.
Nowadays, either the forward’s stick is lifted and we ice the puck (very often) or someone tries to stickhandle through the center of the ice and loses it (also very often).
Which leads me to the proposed fix so meticulously outlined in that article.
Instead of dump & tip-in or try to stickhandle through a team standing strong across the blue line, you have to tell the Flames to feed the puck back to the defender and have the forwards circle back to regroup and pick up speed again. If the opponents prevent the zone entry again, simply keep circling back and play keep -away until the other team loses both their patience and their man.
Quote:
In this image, the Lightning are set up in their standard 1-3-1 while the Caps are patiently regrouping. The Caps are so patient, in fact, that Tampa starts to break their scheme.
The Caps' patience forces Adam Hall (18) to pressure the puck. Mike Green just calmly passes over to Jeff Schultz, and Dana Tyrell (42) chases the puck, which means that the 1-3-1 is now an out of position 2-2-1. This leaves a huge gap on the right hand side of the rink and Matt Hendricks (26) smartly fills it.
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This style of playing with the puck was mentioned by Giordano in his post-game interview after the Red Wings game as well.