Vladimir Yegorov:
"Since 1954, the Soviet hockey masters have repeatedly encountered the strongest amateur teams of Canada, including the winners of the Allan Cup. As [former] coach of the Soviet national team, I would like to share my long-term observations about the game of the Canadian hockey players and talk about some of the traits of the handwriting of these great masters.
Offensive entry of the opponent's zone
There is a characteristic pattern in the offensive moves of the Canadians: the player who picks up the puck at the outlet of his defensive zone or in the neutral zone always moves at full speed. This speed in combination with superb stickhandling skills allows them to enter the offensive zone in an individual effort. Passing the puck, the player usually sends a strong cross-ice pass directly on the stick of his team mate.
If [however] the offensive zone is defended by four or five opponents, it is difficult for the forward to keep the puck. In such cases the Canadians use a different way to enter the zone. Having passed the red middle line, they drive the puck into the nearest corner of the rink. The puck slips behind the goal line and to the opposite corner, where one of the Canadians is [already] heading to at high speed with the aim of capturing the puck.
[Note: For illustration, see "schema 1" below.] Then every effort is made to send the puck to the goal on the shortest way by either passing or stickhandling. Next there is a fierce bombardment of the goal (often without any distinctive setup) and then a rebounding puck, followed by physical pressure on the goal by all three forwards, frequently joined by one of the defencemen.
Using this tactic, the Canadians scored six goals in the first period against the Swedish world champions of 1957 [at the 1958 World Championship].
"Schema 1" illustrates the Canadian dump and chase tactic. The right wing (4) dumps the puck into the corner, the left wing (6) hurries to pick it up on the other side of the net. Meanwhile the center (5) and the right wing close in on the goal. Solid line = path of the puck. Dashed line = path of the players.
Sometimes at a face-off the Canadians send the puck into the offensive zone with such force that it bounces off the board and ends up near the goal. Normally one of the defencemen manages to pick it up in time, but he is immediately faced with two Canadians (a wing and the center forward) rushing towards him. One of them ties up the defenceman and the other captures the puck.
[See schema 2 below.] All five Canadians then put on the pressure and they don't stop until the storming of the goal has succeeded.
When Canadian forwards enter the offensive zone on the wing, they cut out the corners and head straight to the goal with lightning speed. Having shot on the goal without the slightest delay, the Canadians, as a rule, continue forward and close in on the goal. In front of the goal, they are extremely rough, sometimes even rude with their pushing. These vigorous and aggressive moves have a strong psychological effect on the opponents, wear out their energy, disrupt their defence, crush their spirit of resistance and force them into blunders.
That's how the Canadians played against the USA in Oslo [at the 1958 World Championship]. In the first two periods the Canadians scored six goals, five of them from a distance of two or three meters, and in two cases the goals were scored by defencemen.
Schema 2: The puck (solid line) ends up in the vicinity of the goal after bouncing off the board. A defenceman (2) arrives to pick it up, but he is immediately attacked by two Canadian forwards (4 and 5).
How they defend
If the Canadian forward loses the puck in the zone of the opponent, he does not immediately retreat from the zone, but he starts to fight for the puck right away and tries to win it back.
[See schema 3 below.] Covering all opponents closely, the Canadians try to intercept the puck when the opponent (usually a defenceman) attempts to pass it out of the the bottom of the defensive zone to a forward located near the blue line.
Sometimes of course the attempt to intercept the puck deep in the zone of the opponent fails. In this case both Canadian defencemen get moving and skate back towards their goal, calmly and without fuss. Near the red line they turn their backs to their goal and while continuing to retreat they carefully observe the moves of the opponents. At this point they skate [backwards] in parallel lanes, about 6 to 8 meters apart.
The forwards too return to their own zone at high speed and try to catch the opponent as far away from the goal as possible and engage him in a battle for the puck. If this fails and the opponent manages to cross the blue line and move towards the goal, the Canadian forwards rush to their own back end. One or two of them join the defencemen in a vigorous power struggle [with the opposing forwards]. Canadian forwards don't consider it necessary to take care of the opposing defencemen, instead they seek to "lock up" the zone and reinforce the side where the direct fight for the puck is going on. However, as soon as the fight for the puck on one of the sides takes on a prolonged character, one of the forwards moves from the goal area closer to the blue line, taking position between the two opposing defencemen in order to intercept the puck in case it should head towards one of them.
Schema 3: When the Canadians (circular) lose possession of the puck in the offensive zone, their forwards (4, 5 and 6) keep space tight in order to win it right back. The puck carrier already has one of the forwards (4) in his face as another one (5) joins in to attack him.
As soon as one of the Canadian players has won control over the puck, he and his partners switch to the counterattack. The puck is sent exactly to the stick of the line mate, the speed is turned up. The player who gets the puck is backed up [on the rush] by one or two other players, usually a forward and a defenceman. But it can also happen that one of the defencemen leads the counterattack and is backed up by two forwards. This interchangeability of the Canadian players is revealing. It demonstrates that all the Canadian players have mastered both the art of how to attack and how to defend.
How the defencemen play
When the zone of the opponent is put under siege and the Canadian forwards firmly control the puck while storming the goal, their defencemen take position wide in the zone and support the attack very actively. Moving in the zone, the defencemen get into possession of the puck and set each other up, using deceptive maneuvers and stickhandling to keep off the opponent. All this is done with great skill and ease, no matter in which area of the rink. Just as the forwards, the defencemen too are very adept at attacking the goal with a variety of strong shots. The make use of these techniques fast, smoothly and on a high technical level.
If they observe that their forwards lose control of the puck and have no real possibility to engage the opponent in a puck battle, both defencemen immediately retreat from the offensive zone. They move back and prepare to battle the opponents without the help of their forwards.
[See schema 4 below.] In doing so, the defencemen are particularly careful and shrewd and mask their true intentions with clever maneuvers.
The Canadian defencemen are most courageous athletes and masters of the physical game. Often they intentionally miss the opposing forward on the edge of the rink and then, closing in on him in the right moment, they check his body and pick up the puck. They use every opportunity to pin the opponent against the board in order to pounce all their weight on him and push away the puck.
Of course, the Canadian defencemen are not always able to successfully play the body. In case of failure they expertly take a position opposite of their own goal, unselfishly cover the way to the goal through the center and expose their bodies to the impact of the flying puck. If, however, the puck slides down the ice, the defencemen open their gloves and lower their knees to the ice to skillfully catch the puck with their hands. Catching the puck, the Canadians make every effort not to give it away and to pass it to a forward for an immediate counterattack. Often it is the defenceman who has grabbed the puck himself who starts the counterattack, breaks into the neutral zone and attacks the goal of the opponent.
Schema 4: The opponents (triangular) manage to carry the puck out of their zone. As their attack begins to evolve, the Canadian defencemen (2 and 3) retreat towards their own goal.
The Canadian defencemen are masters of such useful tricks as catching the puck. Apparently they already develope this skill in minor and youth teams. Using this stunt, the defencemen alone (without the goaltender involved) stop six or seven out of 12 pucks fired on their goal. This reduces the effectiveness of the opposing fowards significantly. For example, look at the game of the Canadians against the Soviet team at the last World Championship. Early in the first period, two Canadian players were sent to the penalty box, but the three remaining players defended in such a way that the Soviets didn't get a single shot through on the goalkeeper. All of their attempts were stopped in a range from 5 to 8 meters from the goal.
In their own zone the Canadian defencemen use an interesting tactic. Let's say one of them has won the puck, but has trouble moving forward and cannot pass the puck as all of his team-mates are covered. In this case, he rushes to his own goal and moves behind the net while at the same time he keeps facing the rink. He waits for the moment when one of his partners picks up speed to get loose, then he comes out from behind the goal, quickly moves to the free space and gives a strong pass to the accelerating linemate. In this way the Canadians usually start of a sharp counterattack as the forward has often already left several opponents behind him [when receiving the puck].
The Canadian defencemen remain composed, calm and steady in their calculations, even in the most intense moments when the opponent threatens to break through to the goal. They fight courageously in the most difficult situation and never seem to be at loss. So superb and overwhelming are the tactical weapons they possess that not a single opponent managed to complete a pass through the center against any of their two defensive pairings at the 1958 World Championship. On top of it, the Canadians are excellent athletes with extraordinary physical strength, endurance and large size.
The tactics of the Canadian team are based on the fine technical skills of their players. The Canadians are brilliant skaters. They sharpen their skates with a hollow and the blades of their skates have a large curvature which ensures good maneuverability.
They also demonstrate exceptional skill at controlling the puck. Forwards like
[Charlie] Burns and
[George] Gosselin are capable of holding the puck for a minute and longer when the opponent has the man advantage on the ice. These players can be called true rulers of the puck as their control of the disc is simply brilliant. At the [1958] World Championship in Oslo the Canadian team of the "Whitby Dunlops" spent a lot of time shorthanded (they accumulated 70 penalty minutes). And in those difficult times the Canadians specifically sent Burns and Gosselin to the ice where they contolled the puck for long stretches and even attacked the goal of the opponent and tried to score.
There is another characteristic the Canadian hockey players possess. The tactics of their team wouldn't work as well if the players didn't act with remarkable courage and dedication, both in the attack and on the defence. They're fearless, determined and willing to go through intense heat and they keep fighting for the puck even when it doesn't look good for them.
We Soviet players and coaches are well advised to learn from the best foreign teams all the strengths they possess, and of course that means we can't avoid to learn from such great masters of hockey as the Canadians. But our apprehension of the best exponents of foreign hockey has to be creative and thoroughly thought-out. We must not only be clear about the positive but also the negative aspects of foreign hockey and we must only learn what is truly useful and suited to improve the quality of our hockey teams."
