The NHL Thread

- fla 1-2-2 forecheck (aggressive containment?)
- fla cycle / puck support
- importance of f3
- fla neutral zone turnovers ---> transition offense

just grouping a bunch of points about florida together, because of how they related they are and stuff ..... ok so apparently the panthers have a solid forecheck setup. he says they use a 1-2-2, and to my mind that's all about containment. smothering the breakout, muddying the ice; it's kind of like an offensive zone trap. the first guy (f1) isn't even necessarily even trying to win the puck, but to force the breakout one way and slow it down. the other 4 are closing in and cutting off outlets. at this point you may have disrupted a clean breakout and possibly created a puck battle or generated a turnover (but if not you've probably slowed them down at least, maybe forced them sideways, and now you're dropping into your neutral zone trap). he says everyone on the panthers are good on the boards, so i guess i'll take his word for that too. apparently this is where they thrive, by creating puck scrums and winning them.

he says florida doesn't at all mind playing dump and chase, getting hits on the dmen, battling on the boards, forcing them to make plays under pressure over and over. could be pretty massive if the panthers can get hits on bouchard and ekholm, and while their other dmen have good size, they're not exactly the best at making plays with the puck. this is where the panthers have to make #3 dman cody ceci pay, get on him and wear his ass out. phrasing. he also says they're good at creating turnovers and generating offense in transition, i could see that happening here.

think he said somewhere in this vid that maurice has a hard rule about f3 being responsible, and big if true. i love it. to me, f3 not ****ing up (and 90% of this is just being in the right position, the other 10% is not taking any crazy gambles and getting burnt) is a massive thing, it just solves so many problems with one simple trick. a well-positioned, relatively quick, hard-working f3 makes it virtually impossible to generate any transition offense, because you always have 3 guys back. the only way around this is the offense activating the weak side dman, as many do these days, but most teams only have a couple players that do this effectively. and that's only even possible if f2 and f1 fall asleep, which it doesn't sound like the panthers do. seems like part of what makes this team good is a complete 5-man buy-in. his point about their 1-1-3 neutral zone trap backs this up; f3 is responsible af, and f2 & f1 are awake and active in their roles. nothing getting behind you, nothing easy. the forecheck isn't overly aggressive at the point of attack, so you aren't playing yourself by letting them get past you without a fight. they have to go through you.

but edm's transition offense is kind of beside the point anyway, as punker said earlier, despite the reputation the oilers have of being a run&gun team solely due to having connor mcdavid around, they aren't that. they are a slogging la kings style possession team, for the most part. so as long as f3 (barkov, as much as possible) pays attention when mcdavid is on the ice, i wouldn't expect to see much quick strike offense from edm in this series. the panthers 1-1-3 nz trap seems to indicate that the panthers welcome the dump and chase defensively as well, and the oilers like to forecheck and grind, so i guess we'll see who wins out on that one. i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is shaping up as a boring series being fought in the trenches.

- edm 1-2-2 trap
- edm box&1 d
- edm high--->low attack vs man defense

i think the oilers have been playing a more aggressive 5-man offensive zone pressure scheme than the panthers. could be wrong but i think they're forechecking with 2 at least sometimes, obviously trying to win the puck then and there. but the one thing that has stood out to me after watching them a bunch in these playoffs is how aggressive both their dmen have been at holding the offensive blueline, it's very unusual. dangerous. a lot of the offense the canucks found vs edm was chipping and chasing vs this aggressiveness, creating some rush chances. and the thing the stars did more was sending players deep in order to stretch edm out; a guy goes long and someone has to go with him, can break the scheme and even create scoring chances this way. he mentioned that waking up f3 was an adjustment that edm had to make vs the stars, let's see if they keep it up or not.

edm's 1-2-2 seems more about disrupting things in the neutral zone than anything else, but idk. also i don't really recall them creating a lot of nz turnovers, though perhaps i'm misremembering. in any case, once they get to the red line, the panthers might opt for the dump&chase.

the box&1 dz defense is ... interesting. yeah i was trying to figure out exactly what they were doing, i could tell it was some collapsing toward the middle thing, and it was really annoying watching the canucks failing to pass the puck through it over and over (and the stars to some extent), but i suspect the panthers might attack it more intelligently. he mentioned something about how they like working the puck around the outside until they can create a chance. the stars seemed to figure this out, only too late. trying to pass the puck through it isn't usually gonna work out too well.

edm's high to low attack vs florida's man vs man defense is probably the most interesting point of the bunch here, and the clips he used in the video illustrate the point very well. you can see how, when they have full control of the puck in the offensive zone, it's possible for them to essentially hunt the 1v1 matchup they like the best (e.g. mcdavid vs literally anyone), and attack. if i was maurice, i'd have a different scheme or rules for mcdrai than everyone else so as to not allow this obvious exploit, but let's see how they play it. in general i like this kind of man defense, but obviously it's much harder to execute vs superstars.