As a rule of thumb, NHL teams look to play man-on-man when the puck is high (above the hashmarks) and overload the puck (“five-tight,” collapse and play 5v3 in a quarter of the zone) when it is low.
This sort of mixed man/zone approach works well for most.
In this scheme there are three non-negotiables when defending low puck movement, the most dangerous…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Hockey Tactics Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.