Possession Changes

How COL and TBL get fresh players on the ice while staying on offense

Whoever control the puck, controls the tempo.

Colorado Avalanche and the Tampa Bay Lightning implement clever solutions to retain possession while still getting tired skaters off the ice in favor of better-rested teammates.

Here are two possession line change plays you may have seen in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Colorado: Transition Line Change

In the first period, the Avs turn a defensive zone faceoff win into an offensive zone sequence.

COL8 Cale Makar evades TBL’s F1 on the breakout, then changes sides to his partner COL7 Devon Toews.

COL92 Gabriel Landeskog, who had just been deployed to take a defensive-zone faceoff, pushes to the red line and then leaves the ice. With Landeskog’s FOGO (faceoff, get off) mission complete, he is replaced by COL62 Artturi Lehkonen.

Toews gains the red line and dumps the puck into the Tampa zone.

COL91 Nazem Kadri and COL13 Valeri Nichushkin create a two-man forecheck, with Toews and Makar ready to pinch to the half-wall to extend the OZ sequence.

Lehkonen, the last man back, is an afterthought for the five TBL skaters focused on problem-solving COL’s pressure.

Kadri and Nichushkin disrupt TBL’s breakout and induce a stretch pass turnover to Toews.

Lehkonen joins the play as the high F3 and creates a small-area 2v1 with Toews against a collapsed TBL defense. Slightly handcuffed by Toew’s pass, Lehkonen throws a long shot toward net hoping for a friendly carom.

Lehkonen’s weak, low shot winds up a playable rebound for Kadri. He skates onto the puck, cuts back and then identifies Lehkonen sprinting downhill between flat-footed TBL players.

Lehkonen is too close to the goal line to shoot, so he takes the back of the net and feeds COL96 Mikko Rantanen, fresh off the bench, for a chance. Again, note the collapsed positioning and flat-footedness of Tampa players.

Tampa Bay: OZP Line Change