St. Louis Blues Cup Run Threatened By Odd-Man Rushes

Giving up an odd-man rush, like a 2-on-1 break or a breakaway, is the worst thing a team can do. The only more damaging event on the ice is a penalty shot, which is usally made to prevent an almost certain goal anyway.

But an odd-man rush is very much like a penalty shot in that it gives the other team a free shot at your goalie when he is unprotected or outmanned. Odd-man rushes might seem to come out of nowhere to the average fan, but they nearly always arise out of the same ill-advised choices by a defenseman, combined with the play of an opposing player to get the puck up-ice and on-goal.

Defensive Pinching: How And Where

Most odd-man breaks develop when a team’s defenseman “pinches” along the boards to get the puck and/or keep the play in the other team’s zone.

A pinch is defined as being when a defenseman, who usually sits at his or her team’s blue line, presses deeper into the offensive zone against an opposing player along the boards to support the forwards and keep the puck in the zone.

The first rule of appropriate defensive pinching regards timing: if any defenseman pinches, a forward should position himself or herself behind the defenseman to support the pinch in case the opposing player gets free or gets the puck up-ice. In reality, however, this is not often the case. Forwards frequently cannot get to such a position fast enough.

Second, the pinching defenseman’s teammate, the defenseman on the other side, seeing the pinch, should back away from the blue line more into the middle for support. Again, often the pass is already up-ice before then.

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The problem with this is that there are several ways the opposing player can win this battle. He or she can break free and skate forward with the puck, pass up-ice, to the side, or even behind to an unguarded teammate who can then make a long pass up the ice to spring someone on a breakaway or on a 2-on-1 break. Another frequent means of advancing the puck is to carom it off the boards to another player, even while draped by the defenseman.

With all those options, creating an odd-man rush from such a pinch is a high probability. Sometimes the pinch occurs deeper in the other team’s zone, along the half-boards, but this tends to be a lower-risk play. Other times, however, it occurs in the neutral zone, or just inside the defenseman’s own blue line when the other team is bringing the puck in, and even in the name of stout, stand-up defense, such choices can be especially dangerous if not executed flawlessly.

These repeated mistakes are especially vexing in St. Louis, where Hitchcock’s tried-and-true, “defense first” system has consistently produced one of the top NHL regular-season teams over the past few years.

The other way a 3-on-2 or even 4-on-2 break can evolve, completely independent of pinching, is when all three forwards get caught too low in the offensive zone, and a long pass from the back makes its way to a forward for the other team. Though usually not as dangerous, goals can still result from these, and forwards should be ever-mindful of the back check, even during possession, so that when the play suddenly goes the other way they are not caught flatfooted.

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Odd-Man Rush Momentum Killers: Examples

A true hockey fan can still find the merit in a Malkin, Ovechkin, or Kane beating his team with a great shot that only those types of players can make. It is something else entirely to see your team lose all the advantage in a crucial matchup with a divisional rival from a goal off a 2-on-1 break by a 4th-line forward who had not scored in 28 games.

This is precisely what happened in the most recent game between the Blues and the Chicago Blackhawks on February 8. With only 4:38 gone in a scoreless first period, Blues defenseman Carl Gunnarsson was caught on a pinch in the Hawks’ zone that led to a 2-on-1 break with Marcus Kruger, who, flanked by Daniel Carcillo on his left, drilled a wrister past Elliott’s blocker. The Blackhawks never looked back and handed the Blues a crushing regulation loss at home. A four-point shift in the Blues’ favor against Chicago would help them hugely about now with two critical Hawks games on-tap in the last week of the season.

This happened again, only a few weeks later.

When the Montreal Canadiens came into Scottrade on February 24, their utter inability to score goals had been exceeded in press coverage only by the indominable play of their goalie, Carey Price. Yet the recently-punchless Habs won a humiliating 5-2 train wreck, including a pair of goals by Brendan Gallagher, the first of which came off a 2-on-1 break resulting from an errant drop pass by Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko deep in the Habs’ zone. The pass was beyond blueliner Jay Bouwmeester’s reach as he was coming deep into the Habs’ zone and sent Gallagher off to the races. The goal was a killer, a little over halfway through the game, and upped the Habs’ lead to 3-1.

Blues’ Coach Ken Hitchcock spoke with uncharacteristic venom after the loss. “What we’re doing is not paying any respect to checking. We’re not paying any respect to defense, to managing the puck, to managing the proper way to playing. [. . .] When you give up as many odd-man rushes as we’ve given up in the last two games, we’re showing no respect for what matters in the National Hockey League at this time.”

Feb 24, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Montreal Canadiens center Lars Eller (81) and Tomas Plekanec (14) battle St. Louis Blues center David Backes (42) and Carl Gunnarsson (4) for the puck during the first period at Scottrade Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

The Blues were outscored by a total of 9-4 in those two consecutive home games, against the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Habs, two top Eastern Conference teams representative of the caliber of play the Blues will be facing come April.

In the Pittsburgh tilt, the anemic Penguin offense, which had only managed one goal per game in its last three outings, all losing efforts, won 4-2, but the score makes the game sound less lopsided than it was. Dimitrij Jaskin spoiled their backup goalie’s first shutout of the year with 5:27 left in the game.

Even the dead-last Buffalo Sabres, whom the Blues shut out 3-0 a few days before the Hawks loss, were given two breakaways and other odd-man rushes, and only Allen’s heroics kept them off the board.

Pinching: A High-Risk, Low-Yield Practice

While pinching to keep the puck in the offensive zone rarely leads all on its own to a goal, the resultant breakaways and odd-man rushes the other way quite often do. For one thing, it catches the goalie completely off-guard, and in that sense is worse than a penalty shot, where the netminder has time to gear up for and strategize his positioning based on his knowledge of the shooter.

Winning the puck off the boards might lead to one goal in ten attempts, whereas three or four goals (or more) could easily result from that many odd-man rushes and breakaways. So the question arises: why engage in the practice at all?

Late in the game, with, say, seven or eight minutes left, if the Blues are trailing by more than two or more goals, pinching is probably not only acceptable, but necessary to create the kinds of chances needed to catch the other team.

If Hitch encourages pinching at any other time, it would presumably be only when it is fairly safe to do so and the contingency support is in place. Especially in the early stages of the game when it is scoreless, as in the Blackhawk’s game, the risks would seem to far outweigh the benefit. At the same time, more of the Blues forwards could back check more effectively to keep things from taking off in the other direction.

Jun 17, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Colorado Rockies first baseman Justin Morneau (33) and Los Angeles Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell (33) hold the Stanley Cup trophy before the game between the Colorado Rockies and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

With the heightened parity in today’s NHL, the difference between a second-seed division winner and a wild card seventh seed may be only 5-7 points, and the difference in winning and losing a game can easily be the first goal, or a single breakaway. The margin for error is too narrow to justify the practice except under the above circumstances. If the Blues want to go out in style, having fun, they should continue their reckless ways; if they would like to catch a whiff of Lord Stanley beyond the first round, however, they should trust Hitch’s system, and execute it faithfully.

Next: Barret Jackman Scores Amazing Game-Winning Goal

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