We’ve spent the last several weeks working on 2 main concepts (aside from last week’s aside on forechecking):
- Regroup – Moving the puck back to defense and coming back (regrouping) to move through the neutral zone into the offensive zone as a team
- Cycling – Advancing from the “basic” cycle into a variety of cycles and switches, moving the puck around the perimeter of the ice and encouraging players without the puck to skate towards (vs. away from) the puck carrier
Now we’ll focus on combining these concepts: moving the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone then executing on cycles and switches (criss-crosses).
Warm-up Drill: Continuous double drop-pass (with fake second drop pass)
This is a familiar drill with 2 drop-passes except practices fake drop passes (2nd drop pass is always a fake). Switch pucks into opposite corner to get practice on both sides.
Skills Drill #1: Continuous area regroup pass
Similar to last week’s “step out” passing option, this continuous drill simply adds a different passing option – the head-man area pass. Generally ahead of the curling forward between the close blue line and center line.
Skills Drill #3: Regroup to 3v2 Cycles
Now that we’ve worked on several variations of regroup passing (bank pass, area pass, pass to 2nd forward, step-out pass), we’ll progress to the “full version” of the regroup and continue practicing our cycle passing once in the offensive zone.
In this “full version” of the drill, 2 defense will receive the regroup pass while 3 forwards move in an attack triangle formation. After executing a D-to-D pass, any variation of passing back to the forwards and through the neutral zone can be used.
This is a 2 phase drill. Phase 1 is a simple rush and scoring attempt.
Phase 2 calls for additional pucks after an initial shot attempt is made or the puck is cleared, for continued battling. For each additional puck, 2 criss-cross, cycle or drop passes (including fake drops) must be made before a shot can be attempted.
Compete: Full Ice Scrimmage