Backchecking Practice (Full Ice)

Nov
14
2023

Practice Notes

Drills

2 V 0 Continuous Backcheck
Beaver Track
Red Wing 2 V 1 With Backchecker
The Andy Murray
Renegade Line Rush
Wallee 2 vs. 2 Scoring & Defending Game

Please Note: The Practice of the Week is designed to bring value across multiple age levels. You can use this to build ideas to develop your own practice.  With that being said, we highly encourage you to adjust the drills based on your team's age and skill levels. IHS should always be used as a starting point and you can add/remove constraints to fit your team.

Practice Theme: This practice focuses on developing backchecking habits and technique.  The drills and games in this practice put your players in different backchecking situations and require them to work hard to deny scoring opportunities.  The drills and games also work on transition and capitalizing on scoring opportunities while back-pressure is being applied.

Coaching Points

The elements of a good backcheck are:

  1. Urgency and explosiveness of the first several strides
  2. Getting inside the dots (or middle of the ice) as quickly as possible
  3. Keep skating until you are on the defensive side of the puck
  4. Maintain awareness of the opponents and the puck at the same time
     

Team Backchecking
For some of the older teams, we have a breakdown of the roles and responsibilities for each position in the document below

Roles & Responsibilities

 

Drills

https://vimeo.com/794829928
https://vimeo.com/847022751
https://vimeo.com/784994856
https://vimeo.com/847503390
https://vimeo.com/785041967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjnBejc3zs

Systems

No Systems have been added to this practice.

Coaching Clips

Leon Draisaitl backchecks, tracks, and forces dump in

https://vimeo.com/832038986

The elements of a good backcheck are:

  1. Urgency and explosiveness of the first several strides
  2. Getting inside the dots (or middle of the ice) as quickly as possible
  3. Keep skating until you are on the defensive side of the puck
  4. Maintain awareness of the opponents and the puck at the same time

What to Watch

  1. Look at Leon Draisaitl being shot out of a cannon getting back with explosive strides
  2. He is skating hard through the middle of the ice 
  3. He gets on the defensive side of the puck and is able to help angle and force the puck carrier to dump the puck in at the red line
,

Ovechkin Backchecks Relentlessly

https://vimeo.com/846445592

Backchecking is a mindset, it is not glorious, but can be just as good as a goal. In this clip Ovechkin shows he is not above giving an all out effort on the backcheck to prevent a goal. When you put forth an effort like this your teammates take notice.You don't have to be a leading goal scorer to put forth effort like this and you might gain even more respect from your teammates.

What to Watch

  • Ovechkin never stop moving his feet until he has caught up to the player with the puck.
  • The reason he disrupts the player with the puck is pure determination.
  • The player makes a good move to take away Ovechkins hands by cutting across the net but Ovechkin makes an unorthodox move by going behind the player and disrupting the stick on the other side.

Exercises

No Off-Ice Exercises have been added to this practice.