#ryan healey

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: Alright, welcome back to episode two here. We've got Will Scouch and myself, Greg Revak, here on the Hockey IQ Podcast. Now we're going to be talking about point play.

So last week, we talked about modern day defending; what does that kind of look like? We looked into Lane Hutson, some Rasmus Ristolainen, some other players, talking about controlling speed, getting good gap control, position before possession, et cetera.

A lot of powerful stuff there, but today we want to talk about point play. We ended last time talking about shorting the zone. So: getting down off the blue line, especially if the puck is in a corner, getting down into the zone. Instead of standing at the blue line, maybe we're at the top of the circles. [There’s] a lot of reasons we talked about why that's good for defense, gap control, et cetera. but let's start with thinking about point play.

The space from the top of the circles to the blue line up top in the zone, that, generally, is what we're going to call the ‘point’. When we're talking about defensemen or talking about point play, that's the area we're living in. With shorting the zone, we're already starting on top of the circles — [the] blue line is behind us. I love it, [shorting the zone, just from a tactical standpoint] you have so much space to go into, you can make someone chase you and you can do some shimmies.

Lane Hutson is a great example. You start low, bring the puck up, throw one fake one way, go the other. Or a little double move where now the opponent's feet are just completely messed up.

So just from an idea of saving space; I am in this space so I can go to that space, rather than starting at the blue line and now I don't have any space to go backwards — the only options I do have are laterally, left or right. And if I'm on the wall, I only really have one option, which turns into two: either I chuck a terrible point shot — and we know point shots suck — or l've got to move to the middle. You're really limiting yourself. Shorting the zone gives you a lot more space up top.

Will Scouch: Yeah, I agree. I mean, we kind of talked a little bit last episode about offense and defensemen, and I said something along the lines of, “I don't really think about point production a tremendous amount,” but it is interesting when you watch a lot of defensemen who do score a lot and how many, especially outside the NHL, [are] literally peppering the net with point shots.

And at the junior level, when you're facing goaltenders who can often have save percentages down in the .870s, .880s, some of these shots are going to go in, right? Some of them are going to be rebounds in front. That's just so much rarer in the NHL in this day and age. Rebound control is better, defensive zone control is better, positioning is better, they're stronger. It's just tougher to do that.

And so point shots — I mean, it's good to have as a weapon. If you have a defenseman who can really shoot the puck and hammer one on net from 60 feet out, cool. It's not a bad thing, but it's not a great thing to rely on. Goaltenders are getting better and better and better at seeing the puck, tracking the puck, making sure that they can stay on top of these kinds of plays. 

To me, it's more about having a defenseman who can juggle multiple options; a guy who may have a point shot to play around with, but [also] the skill and the creativity and the vision to see what's going on and make a play, rather than just going, “Alright, my job is to put it on the net from here, that's what I do.” Because you also run the risk of someone blocking that shot, it goes out into the neutral zone, maybe you're caught a little bit up the ice and you just wasted an offensive zone possession and you're chasing the puck coming your way.

There's a lot of risk that comes from that in a potentially dangerous area of the ice. I'll cherry pick a really bad example of this, but I remember at the World Juniors when Connor Bedard was there. I think it was a semifinal game or a quarterfinal game, but Connor Bedard was just carrying and carrying and carrying the puck, flying around the perimeter of the ice, and just turned and lobbed one on net from the middle of the ice right from the blue line.

[A] guy, I think it was the Czech Republic, blocked it, Bedard fell down or something, was just caught at that blue line, and they went the other way and scored a goal. And so that kind of thing is something where I always note it down and go, “Yeah, that's just not an option,” that's just not going to work in the NHL. Guys are going to know, guys are going to be able to figure it out.

So yeah, [a point shot is] something that I think is important to know that you have with your defensemen, but [it’s also] important that your defensemen know when to and when not to deploy it, if that makes sense.

GR: I also laugh because anytime you see a team practice and we work on offensive specific stuff and defensive specific stuff, it always seems like somehow the defense ends up working on point shots. It's kind of getting archaic at this point, maybe we should work on other things? That’s kind of, like, the last option.

You know, there are times [they’re appropriate] but a lot of it is at the higher levels [where] maybe we have the strength for those point shots. At the lower level half the time those pucks are barely getting to the net. There's a lot of issues there, but to your point: point shots suck, and I will continue to say that until everyone understands it.

There's increasing goal scoring in the NHL. There is a decreasing save percentage in the NHL. And all the studies I'm continuously reading and finding, the work that's being done out there, seems to point to the same thing: people are no longer settling for crappy shots. 

You may see them every once in a while, but it's more of a change of pace to the usual, to mix it up, more than, “This is our go-to strategy,” like you saw in the dead puck era or the mid 2000s.

WS: Yeah. I think the only real exception I can think of off the top of my head sitting here is the Carolina Hurricanes sometimes seem to really deploy a point shot, a more [chaotic] style of offense. But it kind of works for them in a way because they have the skill and the intensity level from their forwards to gain possession back, or cause tips or crazy plays in front, chase play into the corner.

That's just their style of play. It just seems to be the system that they're deploying, and it does lead to good results, but just saying, “Oh yeah, our defensemen will put it on net and we'll tip it, or we'll catch a rebound or something,” it doesn't generally work out in that way.

You and I, we talk a lot about Lane Hutson, and I think Lane Hutson is probably the most extreme example of the opposite. Where, yeah, once in a while, you'll see him shooting the puck from the point, but the big thing with him — and everybody, it's a meme now, people are pointing it out as a meme of, like, that shimmy shake he's got at the offensive blue line, that ability to bait and switch guys from one way to the next.

I know some people are already pointing at that and going, “What a silly thing that he's doing out there, he's looking like PK Subban!” But number one, PK Subban won a Norris Trophy. And number two, it works. Lane Hutson is a guy who can create, that's how you create space for yourself nowadays, right? You use your feet and your hands and your body in conjunction to create room, to drag pressure around.

Half the name of the game with the puck on your stick is dragging pressure around, right? Manipulating your opponent, making them put themselves in positions that they don't want to be in, and gaining pockets of space and exploiting it.

That's really the name of the game, and point shots can kind of eliminate those opportunities, so I love seeing players who think outside the box, and work off the offensive blue line, and can get a little bit creative, and have systems and support from their forwards that can step up and help them out, help them engage in the offensive zone. It just is the way the game is going, whether you like it or not.

GR: Yeah. Well, first, we'll start with the Carolina Hurricanes example. They also have a puck recovery strategy that they play with, their weak side defenseman is shorting the zone and already heading to the corner as a puck is being shot from the point. They know they're not getting the pass, so they're already playing for the rebound. Which, there's an opportunity there for the other team; if they get the blocked shot that weak side winger is going to [be a step ahead of] the weak side defenseman.

But the Canes get so many pucks back just by activating that weak side defenseman, because most of the time you're not really creating a rebound, you're creating a loose puck. So now you've got to be thinking about loose puck recoveries rather than rebounds. And [shots] from the point, it’s 22 to 24 percent of the time [they] actually create a rebound. Rebounds actually come from shots from the inner slot.

Editor’s note: he said “rebounds” here twice, which makes ZERO sense in context. I have changed it to “shots”. There are a few wonky sentences through this where I’ve reworked the syntax or added a word where they clearly misspoke within the context of the sentence, just trying to make this readable </3

WS: Oh, yeah. Scoring areas, right?

GR: Yeah. From actual scoring areas, so why are we taking so many? So get rid of [point shots] and then we’ve got to find ways to create offense from outside of there.

I did a study with Zach Werenski, he led the league, I want to say it was the 2019-2020 or 2018-2019 season. And he was the number one scoring defenseman, he had the most goals. 20 goals, two were empty netters. so he had 18 actual goals. How did he go about scoring those? If you had to guess, how many do you think were point shots?

WS: All of them. Hard flat bombs from the blue line, 120 miles an hour, easy. No. I honestly have no idea. I'd love for you to enlighten me, because I'm fascinated.

GR: So he scored [on] one point shot, which was basically he got handcuffed with a bad puck, and he was like, “Well, don't really want to turn this one over. So let's just get it in deep.” In which case this one was ‘in deep’ towards the net. Wasn't even a purposeful, “I'm just going to hammer this [one-timer] from the point.” It was literally, his defense partner went d-to-d, basically handcuffed him, and he just tossed it at the net.

WS: Nice.

GR: That was his best option at the point because he just got a suicide pass, defense-style. The other 17 were from within the house. Like, he's getting off the blue line, he's activating into the zone. He's not just standing out there.

Editor’s note: ‘the house’ is slang for the prime scoring area in front of the net, in the middle of the zone. Defenders are often taught to “protect the house”

So you've got [18] different goals which, the fascinating part is, you would think a lot of that might come from the rush before the defense gets set up, but only one of the goals came from the rush. The other 17 were in-zone. CBJ got into the offensive zone, worked it around. He was able to activate, find better spaces to get into the house and then shot and scored.

We have 11 one-time shots, six wrist shots and one backhand, those were [the] distribution. You would think it might just be like, oh, a quick point shot, like a boom one-timer, but there's a lot of wrist shots. There's even a backhand in there. He’s finding ways and finding good pre-shot movement to get himself into a better spot to score. [It was more so about] “How does he find ways to get into scoring places?” rather than having the world's best point shot.

WS: Yeah. And I think that that's — when you look at some of the best offensive-defensemen in the league nowadays — that's what that's like. I'm looking at Evolving Hockey right now, so shout out to the Evolving Hockey boys, but the leaders and individual expected goals by defensemen over the last two seasons… Werenski is number four on that list, which makes a lot of sense, but the only guys ahead of him? Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar and Roman Josi.

And those are all similar, all of those guys are pretty similar, to me, especially Josi and Makar. Behind them, you've got guys like John Carlson, Victor Hedman, Erik Karlsson, Evan Bouchard. I would be very curious about individual expected goals per shot on net, but regardless we don't need to get that much into detail. It also involves math that I don't want to do right now.

But a lot of those really good premier offensive defensemen are the ones who are generating those kinds of results; the guys that are getting into the offensive zone, getting their hands a little dirty and jumping in and playing like a forward.

I remember we did work a while ago. I sent you information on some of the trends that have changed in terms of scoring and why the NHL is scoring so much [more] now than it did when I was younger or when both of us were younger. And the main — the only real difference — it's not that forwards were shooting more, it's not that goaltenders were just worse, it was that defensemen were getting more involved offensively. 

Out of everything out there, the only real significant change was that there were more defensemen in the NHL who can score, right? Before, there were way more defensemen [whose] job was just not to play offense. They're just not allowed. Just cross the red line, dump it in, go for a shift; cross the red line, dump it in, go for a shift.

And now it's very different. To me it goes back to this discussion I have all the time with people where I'm just sort of going, “I want every single player on my team to be,” to use an oversimplified word, but, “good!” right? I want every single player on the ice, regardless of position, to be able to play in the offensive zone and create and be creative, and put pucks on net and generate scoring chances, and have forwards who can cover for defensemen who want to do that.

I think there's been more and more of that in the NHL just because it's good hockey. Now you're seeing a lot more defensemen who are generating a lot more of these individual chances, and Werenski is definitely a good one.

GR: It leads to winning. You definitely can't win a war by sitting in a foxhole, and you can't win a hockey game without scoring goals. If you can find ways to increase that offense, to your point, that's where all the offensive improvements that we've seen in the last decade plus have come from, is just defensemen being more than defense. They're hockey players, they're not just defense.

It's been good to see, there's been a ton of improvement. There's still a lot of detail, I think, that we can flush out within this. I was talking with Seamus Casey (NJD prospect) and I ended up writing about what we were talking about, which is some of the finer details up top.

One of the big ones is just catching within movement. Don't get the puck, then move; be having an idea of movement where you're constantly shifting. Again, offense is about movement: you're constantly shifting the angles and the positioning that the defense has to cover and respect. That's a common mistake I see, a common issue I see at the lower levels.

I was working with a junior-age player, now he's got a freshman year in college this year, [and this is] the number one thing I told him: “Every time you get a puck, you're standing flat. There's no movement. So now you're just putting yourself in a terrible spot where you're easily closed down. The same thing as a moving target versus a stationary target, which one's harder to hit? That's the idea here. So making sure we're catching within movement, even if it's just a step or two, that's a step in the right direction of where you want to go.” Just, have a little bit of movement.

It's one of the reasons I'm a big believer in Ryan Healey out of Harvard.

WS: Oh yeah.

GR: Quite the defensive depth chart to climb in the Minnesota Wild organisation, but I have good feelings about that kid.

WS: Yeah, I remember Ryan Healey. He had some fun moments. And yeah, that's definitely a good example of a player who brings that brand. It’s something that I am always looking for, It's something that you're always trying to get.

At the youth level, it can be hit or miss. I think that there's a lot of — and again, I'm in Canada — and I still think there's a lot of differences between programs in the CHL. How they kind of coached defensemen to be this way, or how they try to bring them along in order to play this brand of play that I think is more and more important into the future.

I mean, there are definitely Canadians who are among some of the most creative and intelligent and skilled offensive defensemen in the world. Cale Makar is a great example of that. But it is, I think, still something that is being explored and figured out and I think there is a perfectly legitimate discussion to be had about the balancing act of all of these things and how you coach your players to recognise opportunities and how to exploit those opportunities.

Like we've said many times in this series, it's a rabbit hole. You can go down deep and these kinds of things can be a long-term process. You take time, work through the good and the bad with the players.’

I don't know, at the end of the day I just love when hockey is creative, skilled, exciting. To me, in the offensive zone especially, I think there's a lot of room for defensemen to be that way. It's changing for the better, in my opinion.

I was just looking in terms of the number of expected goals out of defensemen. I believe there were 10 — ten years ago, there were 10 defensemen with 10 expected goals or more. Last season there were 30, and that's at 5-on-5. There's just a lot more of this going on, and I think we're all better for it. Everybody loves goals, right?

Yeah, everybody loves fights, but fans also get out of their seats when there are goals, and it's always exciting. I love a game where, when you're down 3-1 you have a better chance of coming back because you're really good at scoring goals. That's just what I love.

GR: Yeah, so the other detail I'm thinking about as we're going through this is just positioning, right? We've talked about positioning and just [like] anything in life, positioning makes your life easier. If you position yourself — anything, X, Y, and Z — better, you're playing life, or the game, on a much easier mode. 

For point play here, we want to have some movement, but whether that be into the puck or away from the puck, I'm always talking about positioning and where we are relative to the blue line and relative to the boards. If we can get inside the zone — so getting some depth, like shorting the zone — great.

The other piece is just; from East and West across the rink, making sure that we're getting pucks within the dots. We can take the puck outside if we want to, but we don't want to start there, particularly from the weak side defensemen.

So, one, you can skate towards your partner, catch the puck as it's coming to you and be inside the dots, which is fantastic. Or, if that's maybe not a good option, that space is closed off, making sure that you're giving yourself to the outside. Take a step into the dots or even further in, not just on the dots, but slightly in so now you catch that puck and you can actually fan out

A lot of weak side wingers struggle to get in that shot lane, so even if you want a point shot or you see a passing lane, it's going to open that space towards the net in general. So, just making sure that you're giving yourself good positioning to start your puck touch, you can decide, “Do I want to go inside, do I want to go outside?” and having those options available.

The most common mistake I see is players start in wide open spaces, and they feel so comfortable, “Oh, I've got all this time and space because I'm in space!” Rather than what's better, which is actually putting yourself closer to your opponents where you have, quote unquote, less time and space — but really, you have now opened up space that you can potentially use.

It's not comfortable maybe immediately, but it will become comfortable as the puck touch evolves, rather than the opposite, which I see a ton, which is players start in open space, they feel comfortable like, “Oh, I've got more time and space because I'm physically further apart,” but then their options are so limited.

WS: Right. It's a game. Hockey a lot of the time is a game of creating space. It's a game of finding ways to get out of situations like that. I think that if you are in motion, quick little chips, quick little puck touches can do that for you. Obviously, you want to make yourself a pass target, but little tricks on pass receptions are probably just as important as what goes into that in the first place.

It's something that I still feel like I might be a little bit behind on in that world, listening to you talk about it. It's something that I haven't fully considered exactly, but I totally see where you're coming from, because, yeah, it is a thing where, just because you have space and you're waiting for a puck in that area, doesn't always mean you're going to have it when that puck hits your stick. It doesn't always mean you're going to have it the whole time when you want to have it.

Being able to problem solve and figure out how to create opportunity for yourself whether or not you’re under pressure, it's such a great thing to build on. And again, it goes back to what we talked about last week a lot of the time, with that footwork, the ability to pivot, make quick changes in where you're oriented and where you're headed on the ice. So even those defensive skills that are out there, it also is quite important in the offensive zone as well.

GR: All right. I think, point play, we've opened up a Pandora's box for people to explore, so we should probably end here and we'll head back next week talking about defending the rush.