We’re now into our offensive attack section of this course which a lot of definitions and principles will be connected here and also to the break out section. I want to talk now about stretch skating.
We’ve talked a lot about not cherry picking, and about coming up out of the zone together as a unit. In some of our definitions, such as strong side support, where the W is available for the D1. There is also a time in a place for a player to leave, get ahead and come across looking for either a secondary pass from the W or from the D1. Now this gives us depth to the attack.
We have also talked about having a FWD in each of the three lanes, which gives us width. We also want depth because stretch skating forces the opposition to peel back and creates some space. So if you hear someone say “we’ve got to stretch,” that generally means it is the weak side winger that will come up and across. You’ll also find a great time and a place to use stretch skating is on the neutral zone regroup.
Stretch Skating on a Defence Retrieval
So the puck has left the zone and D1 has come back to retreat and get it. D1 has the option to go D to D option and instead of the weak side W coming all the way back, they may come just to the far blue. You see this a lot in hockey now, they go D to D and off the boards to a stretched or posted up W. Post up and stretch kind of mean the same thing in the context of a neutral zone transition. Generally the C will then come back and near the D1 and give a little bit more support, and is an option for a soft area pass.
Stretch Skating on the Powerplay
The final example is on a power play break out. Very often we will send the W’s long out of the zone stretching things out, which causes the opposing D to backup to cover those FWD’s. You will see all this room that opens up for the attacking power play by stretching the W’s. If we come out too flat, then the opposing D can maintain a tighter gap and limit our space.
When to use Stretch Skating?
Stretching is an individual thing depending on a coach’s style or a player’s ability. It is something that can be really effective, but if done without proper timing, and if the player gets too far ahead or too early, he/she is going to strand his/her defensive players. If a turnover happens and these players stay stretched, then they’re not making that mental switch that we talked about in transition from offense to defense. So it’s an offensive play: it comes with risks, but it has a lot of logic behind it as stretching it out can create opportunities to quickly move the puck up the ice.
(Audio Transcription from How to Play Hockey: Our Minor Hockey Coaching Course.)
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