In Ken Hitchcock’s world, good team ‘D’ is all about puck management and wearing out an opponent, not playing passively
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Defense Does Not Rest - Nov. 30, 2009 - Vol. 63, Issue 11 - Eric Duhatschek
THE ART OF DEFENSIVE HOCKEY is near and dear to the heart of Ken Hitchcock, the Columbus Blue Jackets’ garrulous coach, who was waxing on about the subject during a recent visit to the Canadian west. This was just after the Blue Jackets had raced off to the best start in team history, but were about to embark on a stretch of games without their primary shutdown defenseman, Jan Hejda.
How much of a difference can one player make? Lots, it turns out, especially if he plays what Hitchcock calls “heavy minutes,” which are distinguishable from “big minutes.”
“Mike Green plays big minutes, but he gets some power play time and that’s a big difference,” Hitchcock said. “Jan Hejda plays all heavy minutes and that’s a tough go. Anybody who plays big minutes that are all heavy, those are the hardest guys to replace.”
Hitchcock is known in the industry as a defensive coach, but he chafes at the label – not because it isn’t true, but because he believes the concept of defensive hockey is widely misunderstood.
For many, it conjures up images of the neutral-zone trap; of a team with a limited forechecking strategy, content to sit back and wait for breaks. The sort of mind-numbing hockey that had everybody in the pre-lockout NHL worried because the product was becoming largely unwatchable.
‘ AT THE END OF THE NIGHT, IT’S LIKE DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS’
To Hitchcock, defensive hockey is a different creature altogether.
“Eighty percent of good defensive hockey is one thing primarily,” began Hitchcock. “It’s about players who are taught to understand how to manage the puck.
“Managing the puck means a lot of different things. It means putting the puck in areas where you can get it back, so you can continue your forecheck; putting the puck in smart areas so you can change your players properly; making the other team vulnerable by having them face the goalie – where they can’t look up ice and defend, they have to turn around and face their goalie, which is very difficult.
“It’s about keeping the puck in front of you in scramble situations and staying on the right side of the puck, so you can continually push the other team back in its own zone.”
Hitchcock’s overriding point is clear. Most discussions of defensive hockey focus on how a team plays without the puck – because the other side has possession. To Hitchcock, good defensive hockey is all about what you do when you have the puck.
“It’s really easy to teach a team to play without the puck. It’s not difficult. It can be done in a very short period of time. The difficult part is in teaching a team how to manage the puck.
“No matter what their skill level, the really good teams are the ones that manage the puck properly and make the other team play a three-quarter ice game. In other words, they can’t get it past your blueline. So you end up with all this momentum; you end up always attacking the other team while they’re trying to get their players off the ice, so they always end up back in their own end. That’s defensive hockey.”
So it isn’t just backing up in the neutral zone? Horror spreads across Hitchcock’s face.
“That’s not defensive hockey at all. That’s cautious, tentative hockey. That’s playing scared. When you see a team that’s really good – in our eyes, in a coach’s eyes – it’s because their players manage the puck properly on every shift and then at the end of the night, it’s like death by a thousand cuts. They literally bleed you to death by the way they manage the puck.”
Hitchcock has been in Columbus long enough now that his philosophy has permeated the entire organization, beginning with captain Rick Nash. The two talk all the time about what’s going on, what’s coming up and what they need to do as a team to be better.
Engaging top players in constant dialogue has been a feature of Hitchcock’s modus operandi since he broke into the NHL almost two decades ago, after an apprenticeship in major junior, minor pro and as an NHL assistant.
“We are still on a learning curve,” said Hitchcock of the ’09-10 Blue Jackets, “but there have been flashes with Columbus this year that have felt like a former life – in Dallas or Philadelphia. Our team has been able to play beyond its years. We are (young), but we are able to manage the game like a mature team.
“But everything about defensive hockey is making the other team spend as much time in their zone as they can, or outside your blueline. It’s more about playing outside your blueline than inside their zone, because when you make them spend time outside your blueline, they’re always tired coming off the ice and you’re always fresh going on the ice.
“It’s not a sudden strike. It’s about building great consistent minutes so that at the end of the day, you bleed them dry.”