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Zjack38

How to beat a team that is simply better than you?

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In our state playoffs we're playing a local private school powerhouse, and no one is even giving us a chance to win. But, I feel like they're going to come into the game just assuming they're going to blow us out.

So that can be dangerous for a team, no matter how good they are, so I feel like if we can score first we have a chance. So I'm in need of some ideas to help us beat a team, that we have no business beating. I'm thinking a tight d-zone, clear the puck out when ever we get it (high and off the glass) and to try and get our chances from odd man rushes once we clear it, because we will have one of the wings flying through the middle to pick up the puck when it's cleared. We're going to have to block shots, and is there anything else I'm missing besides common hockey knowledge??? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Shut down their best guy or couple guys. It's amazing what can happen when their superstar gets frustrated. It carries over to the entire bench.

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Quite a few years back my team was playing against Northwood university in the first round of the conference playoffs. About 15 minutes before the game some lady with a clipboard popped in to our locker room and read off the names of all of our players who were academically ineligible. Our leading scorer had to switch to netminder, and we skated like 8 guys. Northwood had one of the league leaders in scoring but we won by icing the puck almost every single time we touched it. It was very frustrating for them and we won with a shutout. They just couldn't get anything going or overcome the frustration of constant icings!

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Without knowing the strengths and weaknesses of both teams, any advice is a random guess. One thing is for sure, you will have to out-work the other team and not just by a little bit. Everyone on your team has to give everything they have, and even a little more that they didn't know they had.

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Along the lines of the Herb Brooks suggestion, emphasize the role of defensive forwards to focus on frustrating their best players as much as possible, the way Brooks used Mark Wells. Maybe designate 1 forechecker with the best wheels on each line and have his linemates worry more about the neutral zone and backchecking in general. In your end, emphasize that wings can't afford to make mistakes covering points or centers allowing open men in the high slot. In their end, emphasize anticipating the need to cover for your D anytime they're involved in offense. Keep point shots low and don't give up any breakaways getting shots blocked off shin pads.

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The problem with trying to shadow or shut down their best player(s) is if you don't have someone who is as good they won't be able to do it successfully. If you put 2 men on them then you leave one of their players open. On 5 vs 5 I don't like playing a man to man system, especially if the team is better. It's to easy to loose your coverage leaving guys open and it eventually ends up like a Chinese fire drill. I like to play more of a zone type defense that gives them the outside and shuts down passing lanes. Short passes out of the zone, use the boards to clear the puck and get the puck out of the zone is the priority; basically a defense first mind set. One hard fore checker, a second fore checker in the middle lanes with the last 3 in the neutral zone. My object would be to force them to the outsides but not give up the neutral zone so that can't build up speed coming through.

You have to win the defensive battle and hope for a dirty or surprise goal to beat a much better team. When we play a better team or we start to get bad habits I always remind my team mates to keep it simple and play Hockey 101.

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been playing for about 24 years, and coaching for about 7 now from bantams to midget majors

the most success i've seen in beating a team with more skill is to have set offensive plays that you can use to get quality opportunities. shutting them down defensively is a great plan and needs to be executed, however if they are this skilled its only a matter of time before they get their chances. You have to be able to answer them

relying on odd man rushes is good, but you need more - once you have the rush you need to establish offensive presence and then run some sort of play that everyone on the ice knows and can use to get a qualify scoring chance

obviously this takes dedicated time in practice (often times for a majority of the season), before it can be useful

if you can execute this by the time the other team can catch on it will be too late, and you can hunker down and play some defense to ride out the game with the W

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If they have a couple of stars that their game is based around then you can certainly change the odds in your favour by tracking them but... It takes a certain type of player, skill level and mentality to undertake this role. You have to track the player from the moment the puck drops, even if your team has the puck the player still lives on top of the man he is tracking. They must do nothing else, not look for the puck, not try to get open for plays, not support in a rush etc etc, just constantly live on the player. You can also elevate it to another level by constantly chirping them, putting your stick over theirs, tapping their skates or shins, contact at faceoffs, jersey tugs, stick jams etc etc (expect retaliation if things boil over). If, as a player, you have never experienced this it can be really frustrating, mess with your mind and spill over to your team mates (who will generally not pass to you because they see someone living on top of you). I incorporate this as part of training to teach players a different skill and view of the game and have used it often with success when coming up against sides like you have described.

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We ended up losing 2-0. Not bad for a team that was supposed to get blown out and mercy ruled, not to mention they were state runner ups last year and ranked 4th in the state this year, and on top of that we only had 11 skaters vs there 20 skaters (and they have a JV team).  

It would have been sweet if we pulled it off, but I'm happy with the way we played.

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