News Article: New "sexy" system
- Thread starter LadyStanley
- Start date
I re-listened a while ago Peter De Boer's interview from The Full 60 podcast from The Athletic. In that podcast last summer he watched again game 7 between Sharks and Golden Knights but also told some tactical insight how he wanted Sharks to play. He was pretty respectful towards both teams.
There were five things which got my attention. I observed yesterday against Nashville if those five things were seen also in the way how Golden Knights played and found some interesting details which I am now going to share with you guys.
1. If an opponent has three forwards in the DeBoer's team defensive zone he wants that all his five players are in the same picture creating 5v3 advantage
So, here you have two pictures in one GIF. Both pictures are from the first period. In the first image, there is 4v3 advantage near the wall and then Marchessault is on the other side but there are all five players in the same picture, good. Marchessault is ready to move to the centre if Nashville wins the puck or if Vegas wants to play the puck behind the goal to the Marchessault's side he can move to the wall near to him and put the puck to the neutral zone.
In the second picture all five players are extremely close but still Granlund is able to shoot because McNabb gave a little bit bad pass from the wall towards centre and Granlund was able to break that pass and shoot but Fleury made a great save. But yeah, I was happy to see that most of the time players did what DeBoer wants and all five players were in the same picture in the own zone.
2. DeBoer said that in the San Jose, they focused mostly breakouts from the own zone when they practised. DeBoer believes that if your team is able to come from the own zone cleanly, you are able to cross the neutral zone smoothly and the whole attacking game and forechecking flows naturally onwards
Granger already made same kind of observations in his article but here a couple of more examples. All three Preds forwards are forechecking in the deep but Vegas has still important 4v3 advantage. The key is that normally a centre comes really close to help defenfers in front of own net and then other winger also comes down when other winger in this case is outside of the picture on the weightless side (sorry, don't know if that is the right word in English). Okay, in this case Pacioretty is briefly in the centre spot and Stephenson near the wall but you probably understand the point. Stone is not in the picture but he will soon also come to play from the other side. It is more normal here in Europe than in the North America that a five-man unit will come from their own end with short passes and you need to have all five players pretty close to each other to be able to do that and I am happy to see that Golden Knights is going to that direction even though they are playing in the smaller rink. And you can't enough highlight that triangle between defenders and a centre which is in crucial part and distances between them should not grow too much.
Fleury decides to play the puck but also defenders could have made a same kind of pass along the boards. Stephenson is in 1v1 battle but because Pacioretty did not get a pass to the centre he comes to help and creates advantage. Together they win the puck and at the same time Stone finally comes to help from the other side. He gets the puck from Pacioretty, uses his skill set to slow down the game a little bit and waits that Pacioretty continues his move. Then he passes back to Pacioretty and he is able to shoot immediately when skating towards the goal. This a great example how game flows naturally and smoothly when you get out of from your own zone pretty cleanly. After Rinne saves the puck to the corner, Vegas can continue forechecking the puck back quickly.
Here is an other example. Third line goes to the bench and second line comes in. Schmidt waits that everybody are ready and then all five players start to attack at the same time. It is not clever to attack alone and unorganised against Preds' unit so Schmidt made a right decision to wait. He finds Stone and at the same time Stephenson makes himself available in the centre lane. Like Pacioretty he can immediately shoot after entering offensive zone and game flows smoothly. All three forwards were attacking at the same time when Pacioretty was also in the left side ready to collect a pass if Stephenson had passed to him. And one last thing is that especially in the first period yesterday Vegas used this kind of approach many times and was able to find a centre in the neutral zone who then drived the play to the Preds' defending zone. I assume that next opponents are better to defend the neutral zone than Nashville yesterday but you can't still take anything away from the Vegas.
3. When forwards pass the puck to defenders in the attacking zone DeBoer wants that there are always two players in the mask if defenders are going to shoot. Other forward is in the high slot and other in front of the goalkeeper. Third forward has freedom to position however he wants but he needs to cleverly read the game
This also was truth many times yesterday but here is only one picture. Stastny's line won the puck in the corner and played it to the blue line. Theodore could have shoot past the opponent but he decides to pass to Holden to better place. However, if Theodore had shoot, there would have been two players in the mask like DeBoer wants. Stastny is in the high slot and Smith near the goalkeeper. Marchessault is the third forward who has freedom to position himself like he wants. If Holden decides to play the puck behind the goal then Marchessault can come against the puck from his side but if Holden shoots then Jonathan can go to the backpost rebound.
4. On the powerplay the most important player is "the bumber" according to DeBoer. He means that player who plays between the opponent's PK players in the slot is a key player to relief pressure and offer passing chances but that player can also score if he can move on the right time to shooting positions like for example Scheifele. He also said that it is very important to get players adapt to their roles even though everybody wants to have puck as much as possible.
Stastny is the bumber player here and gives an great example how to work in that important position. Theodore passes the puck to Pacioretty who is in bad spot near the blue line but Stastny comes to help and together they clear the pressure. Stastny changes the side to Stone who then drops the puck to Theodore and he shoots an one-timer. And when he shoots, there are again two players in the mask. Stastny moves to high slot and Tuch is near the goalkeeper.
And when the situation continues, Stastny and Tuch change positions briefly. Stone passes the puck to Stastny behind the goal line. At the same time Tuch moves in the slot to the place where can shoot the puck like Scheifele but unfornately Rinne makes a save.
5. On the PK, he said that Sharks used 1-3 system. That means that there is one forward who gives pressure on the neutral zone. Other three players defend own blue line. Other forward defends left or right side and other defender other side. There is always second defender in the middle because he is the player who will collect pucks behind the goal if an opponent dumbs the puck
Yep, this was also seen yesterday for example here in the first period. In the 1-3 system, Eakin is in the picture F1 who gives the pressure alone on the neutral zone. Other three players defend the own blue line. Tuch is other forward and is on the right side. Defenders are Schmidt and McNabb. But why McNabb is the other defender on the other side and not Schmidt? Well, because McNabb is much better and physical to stop zone entries near the wall and if Nashville dumps the puck Schmidt in the middle can use his smoothness and collect the puck behind the goal much quicker than more heavier McNabb.
There were five things which got my attention. I observed yesterday against Nashville if those five things were seen also in the way how Golden Knights played and found some interesting details which I am now going to share with you guys.
1. If an opponent has three forwards in the DeBoer's team defensive zone he wants that all his five players are in the same picture creating 5v3 advantage
So, here you have two pictures in one GIF. Both pictures are from the first period. In the first image, there is 4v3 advantage near the wall and then Marchessault is on the other side but there are all five players in the same picture, good. Marchessault is ready to move to the centre if Nashville wins the puck or if Vegas wants to play the puck behind the goal to the Marchessault's side he can move to the wall near to him and put the puck to the neutral zone.
In the second picture all five players are extremely close but still Granlund is able to shoot because McNabb gave a little bit bad pass from the wall towards centre and Granlund was able to break that pass and shoot but Fleury made a great save. But yeah, I was happy to see that most of the time players did what DeBoer wants and all five players were in the same picture in the own zone.
2. DeBoer said that in the San Jose, they focused mostly breakouts from the own zone when they practised. DeBoer believes that if your team is able to come from the own zone cleanly, you are able to cross the neutral zone smoothly and the whole attacking game and forechecking flows naturally onwards
Granger already made same kind of observations in his article but here a couple of more examples. All three Preds forwards are forechecking in the deep but Vegas has still important 4v3 advantage. The key is that normally a centre comes really close to help defenfers in front of own net and then other winger also comes down when other winger in this case is outside of the picture on the weightless side (sorry, don't know if that is the right word in English). Okay, in this case Pacioretty is briefly in the centre spot and Stephenson near the wall but you probably understand the point. Stone is not in the picture but he will soon also come to play from the other side. It is more normal here in Europe than in the North America that a five-man unit will come from their own end with short passes and you need to have all five players pretty close to each other to be able to do that and I am happy to see that Golden Knights is going to that direction even though they are playing in the smaller rink. And you can't enough highlight that triangle between defenders and a centre which is in crucial part and distances between them should not grow too much.
Fleury decides to play the puck but also defenders could have made a same kind of pass along the boards. Stephenson is in 1v1 battle but because Pacioretty did not get a pass to the centre he comes to help and creates advantage. Together they win the puck and at the same time Stone finally comes to help from the other side. He gets the puck from Pacioretty, uses his skill set to slow down the game a little bit and waits that Pacioretty continues his move. Then he passes back to Pacioretty and he is able to shoot immediately when skating towards the goal. This a great example how game flows naturally and smoothly when you get out of from your own zone pretty cleanly. After Rinne saves the puck to the corner, Vegas can continue forechecking the puck back quickly.
Here is an other example. Third line goes to the bench and second line comes in. Schmidt waits that everybody are ready and then all five players start to attack at the same time. It is not clever to attack alone and unorganised against Preds' unit so Schmidt made a right decision to wait. He finds Stone and at the same time Stephenson makes himself available in the centre lane. Like Pacioretty he can immediately shoot after entering offensive zone and game flows smoothly. All three forwards were attacking at the same time when Pacioretty was also in the left side ready to collect a pass if Stephenson had passed to him. And one last thing is that especially in the first period yesterday Vegas used this kind of approach many times and was able to find a centre in the neutral zone who then drived the play to the Preds' defending zone. I assume that next opponents are better to defend the neutral zone than Nashville yesterday but you can't still take anything away from the Vegas.
3. When forwards pass the puck to defenders in the attacking zone DeBoer wants that there are always two players in the mask if defenders are going to shoot. Other forward is in the high slot and other in front of the goalkeeper. Third forward has freedom to position however he wants but he needs to cleverly read the game
This also was truth many times yesterday but here is only one picture. Stastny's line won the puck in the corner and played it to the blue line. Theodore could have shoot past the opponent but he decides to pass to Holden to better place. However, if Theodore had shoot, there would have been two players in the mask like DeBoer wants. Stastny is in the high slot and Smith near the goalkeeper. Marchessault is the third forward who has freedom to position himself like he wants. If Holden decides to play the puck behind the goal then Marchessault can come against the puck from his side but if Holden shoots then Jonathan can go to the backpost rebound.
4. On the powerplay the most important player is "the bumber" according to DeBoer. He means that player who plays between the opponent's PK players in the slot is a key player to relief pressure and offer passing chances but that player can also score if he can move on the right time to shooting positions like for example Scheifele. He also said that it is very important to get players adapt to their roles even though everybody wants to have puck as much as possible.
Stastny is the bumber player here and gives an great example how to work in that important position. Theodore passes the puck to Pacioretty who is in bad spot near the blue line but Stastny comes to help and together they clear the pressure. Stastny changes the side to Stone who then drops the puck to Theodore and he shoots an one-timer. And when he shoots, there are again two players in the mask. Stastny moves to high slot and Tuch is near the goalkeeper.
And when the situation continues, Stastny and Tuch change positions briefly. Stone passes the puck to Stastny behind the goal line. At the same time Tuch moves in the slot to the place where can shoot the puck like Scheifele but unfornately Rinne makes a save.
5. On the PK, he said that Sharks used 1-3 system. That means that there is one forward who gives pressure on the neutral zone. Other three players defend own blue line. Other forward defends left or right side and other defender other side. There is always second defender in the middle because he is the player who will collect pucks behind the goal if an opponent dumbs the puck
Yep, this was also seen yesterday for example here in the first period. In the 1-3 system, Eakin is in the picture F1 who gives the pressure alone on the neutral zone. Other three players defend the own blue line. Tuch is other forward and is on the right side. Defenders are Schmidt and McNabb. But why McNabb is the other defender on the other side and not Schmidt? Well, because McNabb is much better and physical to stop zone entries near the wall and if Nashville dumps the puck Schmidt in the middle can use his smoothness and collect the puck behind the goal much quicker than more heavier McNabb.
GKG18
Expansion Fan
Thank you for this- I noticed all these things but being relatively new to closely following a hockey team am not able articulate as clearly as you have here.
One more "new" tactical element from the game against Lightning. There are three different pics in the following GIF. I want to highlight an aspect which have been much more noticeable on the DeBoer's era than when Gallant was in charge. I will talk about what defenders do after turnovers.
In the first image, Stone-Stephenson-Pacioretty line has lost the puck in the offensive zone. Tampa Bay is beginning to counterattack but Theodore pinches forward and tries to stop counterattack instead of backing towards own goal. However, he fails.
In the second image, Holden is now basically alone in the neutral zone or at least the closest man to own net. One could think that at least now he should just skate towards own goal and make sure that Tampa Bay do not get free breakaway chance but Holden continues pushing forward and eventually wins the puck against Cirelli.
In the third image you will see the prize. It is 3v1 counterattack for Vegas. Unfortunately Holden's pass to Pacioretty wasn't good and Max wasn't able to shoot from the open spot but with a better execute Golden Knights might have scored.
So, DeBoer clearly wants that his defenders push forward to keep the distances short. There are red lines in the pictures above and they will describe the distances between forwards and defenders. You can see that distances are short and that's why it is basically impossible for Tampa Bay to pass in the middle of Vegas' five-man unit. The only chance is to play long pass behind the defenders and then win the skating contest against Holden or Theodore. Now when both Theodore and Holden defend forward instead of skating backwards, there is simply no space for an opponent to cross the neutral zone with short passes in the middle.
In the soccer if you want to press high your defensive line also needs to support the high press because if they do not support, there will be free spaces to play between attackers+midfielders and defenders. If your attackers press high and at the same time your defensive line runs towards own goal, there will be free spaces for an opponent in the midfield because gaps between attackers and defenders will grow too much. Same idea can be used in hockey. So, because Vegas's forwards are forechecking in the deep, defenders also need to be high and they are not allowed to skate backwards too early because then an opponent can easily pass the puck to free spaces between forwards and defenfers. To be more clear, free spaces will be on those cases behind forwards and in front of defenders but now when defenders push forward they will close those gaps and spaces behind forwards. So. when defenders support high press/forechecking like in the images above there is no space for an opponent to pass the puck to free spaces between forwards and defenders because there are no such free spaces like you can see in the pictures above.
In the first image, Stone-Stephenson-Pacioretty line has lost the puck in the offensive zone. Tampa Bay is beginning to counterattack but Theodore pinches forward and tries to stop counterattack instead of backing towards own goal. However, he fails.
In the second image, Holden is now basically alone in the neutral zone or at least the closest man to own net. One could think that at least now he should just skate towards own goal and make sure that Tampa Bay do not get free breakaway chance but Holden continues pushing forward and eventually wins the puck against Cirelli.
In the third image you will see the prize. It is 3v1 counterattack for Vegas. Unfortunately Holden's pass to Pacioretty wasn't good and Max wasn't able to shoot from the open spot but with a better execute Golden Knights might have scored.
So, DeBoer clearly wants that his defenders push forward to keep the distances short. There are red lines in the pictures above and they will describe the distances between forwards and defenders. You can see that distances are short and that's why it is basically impossible for Tampa Bay to pass in the middle of Vegas' five-man unit. The only chance is to play long pass behind the defenders and then win the skating contest against Holden or Theodore. Now when both Theodore and Holden defend forward instead of skating backwards, there is simply no space for an opponent to cross the neutral zone with short passes in the middle.
In the soccer if you want to press high your defensive line also needs to support the high press because if they do not support, there will be free spaces to play between attackers+midfielders and defenders. If your attackers press high and at the same time your defensive line runs towards own goal, there will be free spaces for an opponent in the midfield because gaps between attackers and defenders will grow too much. Same idea can be used in hockey. So, because Vegas's forwards are forechecking in the deep, defenders also need to be high and they are not allowed to skate backwards too early because then an opponent can easily pass the puck to free spaces between forwards and defenfers. To be more clear, free spaces will be on those cases behind forwards and in front of defenders but now when defenders push forward they will close those gaps and spaces behind forwards. So. when defenders support high press/forechecking like in the images above there is no space for an opponent to pass the puck to free spaces between forwards and defenders because there are no such free spaces like you can see in the pictures above.
Ad
Upcoming events
-
2024 SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament Sacramento Kings @ New Orleans PelicansWagers: 5Staked: $318.00Event closes- Updated:
-
Stanley Cup 2024 Stanley Cup Champion - ONLY BET ONE TEAMWagers: 12Staked: $16,404.00Event closes- Updated:
-
-
-
Series Winner Boston Bruins vs Toronto Maple LeafsWagers: 8Staked: $3,310.00Event closes
- Updated: