Reversed Grip on a Draw

The other night I happened to notice one of my centermen reversing his lower hand on his stick just before moving in to take a face-off.  I’m sure you know what I mean…  He switched his lower hand in the opposite direction, supposedly to gain more strength for pulling the puck rearward.

The good part of this was that my young guy was at least mindful of drawing the puck back amid his teammates.  However, the bad part of this ploy actually reared its ugly head once the puck was dropped.

You see, for a lot of years now, most coaches have steered their face-off men away from this technique for a couple of very good reasons:

1. Going in with that kind of a hand arrangement is a dead giveaway as to what a centerman plans to do;
2. (as happened in the ensuing play) that sort of grip gives a player almost no chance in the battle for a loose puck.

Yes, the latter is exactly what happened…  After an initial swipe at the puck, the biscuit remained between the two combatants until the rival centerman walked away with it.

So again, while a face-off man might be able to gain more strength from that grip, the negatives seemingly far outweigh the positives.

Plus and Minus Positioning

No, I’m not going to be talking about +/- stats here.  Also, I know that some other coaches use different terminology for what I’m about to explain.  Still, the following concept is an extremely important one, no matter what we call it…

Now, the above diagram shows my “X” defending against a puckcarrier shown as the “O”.  My guy’s positioning is pretty good here, since he’s in between his man and our net, and he’s also holding something close to a 45-degree angle on that man.

When it comes to terminology, I say that my guy’s location — between his man and his own net — puts him on the Plus side of the play.  (As an FYI here, his holding the 45-degree angle assures us that the puckcarrier is trapped towards the boards, and that he isn’t going to easily make his way to our goal.

However, here’s where things can sometimes get tricky — and go terribly wrong — in my Plus and Minus view of things…  Very frequently, two rival players such as these get involved in a tussle along the boards.  And, in the middle of that brief wrestling match, it’s a no-no if my guy at any point gets rolled towards the Minus side.  And, all it takes is for the attacker to gain an advantage for a brief moment.  For, if our guy does get rolled towards the Minus side, it’s quite likely our opponents will have something akin to a man-advantage from that point onward (as indicated by the green line in the sketch below).

Of course, these brief skirmishes can happen anywhere along the boards, in any of the three zones.  Yes, I feel the situation is just as dangerous if our man loses his Plus side positioning far down behind our opponents’ net.