To play as a defender in the NHL
might be the toughest, the most difficult position in hockey. There are a few
trends for modern defenders. Modern NHL-defenders need to be mobile, quick and
good skaters. This is needed because modern NHL-forwards are usually extremely
good, fast, speedy and mobile skaters and if you can’t adapt to this with your
own skating-abilitiy you are toast! I notice more and more NHL-teams buying out
huge contracts of some sort of old-fashioned d-men because it’s obvious that
they don’t fit anymore to the fast and speedy NHL-games as it is played
nowadays. If you are 30+ you also start to lose the one and the other step in
speed and quickness and this hurts a lot. So, experienced veteran NHL-d-men
have a hart time to keep up with what is requested from them, so you need to be
a real star-defenseman if you don’t want to be in danger of becoming a so
called buyout-victim. In addition you need to have a really good puck-control
and you have to read the game very quickly. There is no time in the NHL to
control the puck and then watch what you could do with it. You have to think
the game in advance, not losing time with preparing the puck and not losing
time with thinking what to do. These are exactly the important split-seconds
you lose for effective plays in transition. Another thing I want to point to is
the stick-work without the puck. Often I see in that d-men attack the body
first of the puck-carrier. This is wrong. First you have to attack the puck:
Stick on the puck and then attack the body. Efficient poke-checking gets more
and more important. As a defender you have the responsibility that the shots of
the opposing players don’t come through, don’t come to the net. With clever
stickwork, great pokechecking you can deflect these shots so they might even
land in the stands. James Neal did mention that one of the best defenders in
deflecting shots is Paul Martin, they both played in Pittsburgh. Paul Martin
had the knack of deflecting all shots up in the roof. Paul Martin might not be
one of the most famous NHL-defenders in today’s NHL but still: Try to catch his
unique ability of deflecting shots. Martin is playing with San Jose at this
point. Moving on to the more common names I want to start with:
Drew Doughty
Doughty is a player with huge confidence
and some sort of positive arrogance but what really sets him apart from other
good d-men is his intuition. In today’s modern tight
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| Drew Doughty: Confidence and instincts |
backchecking type of
hockey, offensive, rushing d-men become more and more important for creating
goalscoring-chances with the second wave and if you watch Doughty closely you
will soon find out that he is one of the very best in anticipating the right
moment to pick his spot and jump into the play. Doughty knows when to step back
and when to attack.
Shea Weber
Shea Weber is a tower of a d-man
and owns a brutal hard slapper. One of his specialities is his cleverness to
manage himself into a clean shot position. In addition watch his textbook
body-positioning in the corners.
Ryan Suter
Ryan Suter plays close to 30 minutes
per game and you can only do this if you own a very smart hockey-brain what
tells you when you have to go full out and when you can step back and control
the game with just sound positioning. Watch also his high-end breakout-passing.
Duncan Keith
One of his best assets is his
lateral skating. This allows him to defend very effectively in the neutral
zone, thanks also to his great poke-checking abilities. Keith is one of the
best in terms of what I did tell in very beginning of the column. Stick on the
puck, great poke-checking.
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| Duncan Keith: A very smart poke-checker |
Duncan Keith is not very flashy but extremely
efficient. In addition he puts himself better than others in really good
scoring-positions without the puck.
P.K. Subban
Like Doughty he plays with a huge
confidence. Technically you won’t find many players with better edgework than
him what allows him to change from backward to forward and the other way round
in a split-second and all this without losing real speed.
Erik Karlsson
You find first of all great
skating-abilities if you study Erik Karlsson but his probably best asset is
that he has the knack of getting most of his shots through traffic and on net.
His shots get very seldom blocked. He creates his shooting-lanes for himself
with high-end dekes and uses then this extra split-second to find a clean
shooting-lane. Deking as a d-man is often an overlooked asset. You also can
deke the opposing puck-carrier and making him moving to one side if you
indiciate a tiny little bit that you might move to the other side.
Kris Letang
Letang’s biggest asset is his
confidence with the puck. He always plays with his head-up and is always
looking for a promising play to develop.
Alex Pietrangelo
Petro is a special player in an
often overlooked aspect, the so called “escapability”. If there is a mess of
sticks and players, a scrum and a chaotic situation in front of the net or in
the corners he more often than not comes out with the puck on his stick. Watch
this special asset in his game, it’s really astonishing.
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| Alex Pietrangelo: State of the art escapability
In the very end I want to tell
again: Watch these players, tape games, study their plays, study how they react
in what situations. You will learn a lot! Enjoy!
|
And go for it - because its THE cup!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSd8CqBEbcY
This 3-part-column contains quotes from Mark Streit, Jonathan Quick, James Neal, Connor Hellebuyck, Kevin Shattenkirk, Andrew Berkshire, Drew Doughty, Scott Stevens, Patrick Kearns and Logan Couture. Thank you!
Horgen, 31st
January 2016 / Thomas Roost
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