Offensive Zone Play

Overview

Position

You already have the puck in the offensive zone — getting there is Zone Entries, winning it back is Forechecking Systems

Goal

You are not trying to take a shot — you are trying to take a shot from a dangerous place, with the goalie out of position

Key

The cycle, the low-to-high and the net-front battle are machinery for producing one shot from a dangerous place, with the goalie out of position

Risk

Almost every amateur team can get the puck into the offensive zone; far fewer turn possession there into a dangerous shot

Once you already have the puck at the other team's end of the ice, you are not trying to take a shot. You are trying to take a shot from a dangerous place, with the goalie out of position. Almost every amateur team can get the puck down there; far fewer turn that into a shot from anywhere dangerous, and everything else is machinery for producing that one moment.

Look across the middle of the ice before you look up the wall. A pass that crosses the line running down the centre of the rink from goal to goal, immediately before the shot, is the highest-value pass type measured — roughly double the next one in volunteer-tracked NHL data on 5-on-5 shot attempts, which ranks pass types against each other and not against everything else you could do with a puck — because the goalie cannot re-square, find the puck again and reset their stick in the time available. The scan order is what decides whether you ever see it: by the time you have looked up the wall and come back, that gap has opened and closed.

Moving the puck around the outside is a set-up, not an outcome. If it does not end in a shot from the middle, a pass through the middle, a shot from the blue line with the goalie's view blocked, or a drive at the net, it did nothing. And that shot from the blue line is a good play with somebody blocking the goalie's view and two teammates hunting the rebound, and a giveaway without them — you win the race for a rebound by deciding to be there before the shot, not by reacting after it.

Standing in the goalie's sightline is normally legal, and worth doing constantly — from outside the painted crease, and without contact. Inside the crease it is not — though the rule is narrower than it sounds. What voids the goal in there with no contact at all is a significant position: a substantial part of your body in the paint for more than an instantaneous period, obstructing the goalie's vision and impairing their ability to defend. Keep your feet out of the paint whichever book you play under — a foot in there risks the goal under all four books, and under USA Hockey rules it costs you the zone as well, and under the IIHF's it can — 69.1 lets the referee stop play where you are in the crease and "do not leave immediately".

Almost everything else here is a coaching choice — who takes the front of the net, whether the defencemen join the attack, how the forwards rotate. Find out what yours plays before deciding somebody else is out of position.

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1. The Goal: Shot Quality, Not Shot Quantity

The scoring area — "home plate"

Position

Home plate runs from the tops of the two faceoff circles, in along the tops, down to the dots, then angles in to the goalposts

Key

Shots inside home plate are counted as scoring chances; those from the inner part, close to the net and between the dots, as high-danger chances

Position

The slot is straight out in front of the net between the circles; the high slot runs from the dots up to the tops of the circles

Position

The goalmouth is the immediate net front; the point is the area just inside the blue line; the half-wall is the boards level with the faceoff dot

Key

The faceoff circles and the goal crease are your on-ice ruler for everything below

Analysts describe the dangerous part of the offensive zone as a home-plate shaped area (as in the baseball plate). It runs from the tops of the two faceoff circles, in along the tops of the circles, down to the faceoff dots, and then angles in to the two goalposts. Shots inside it are counted as scoring chances; shots from the inner part of it, close to the net and between the dots, are counted as high-danger chances.

Some geography, in plain terms:

• The slot is the area straight out in front of the net, between the two faceoff circles.
• The high slot is the upper part of it, roughly from the level of the faceoff dots up to the tops of the circles.
• The goalmouth is the immediate net front — the few feet either side of the blue paint.
• The point is the area just inside the blue line, where defencemen usually stand — an area, not the line itself.
• The half-wall is the boards area level with the faceoff dot, between the corner and the point.

For reference, the end-zone faceoff circles have a 15-foot radius (NHL Rule 1.9) and the goal crease — the blue paint — extends six feet out from the goal line at its deepest, with straight side lines one foot outside each post (Rule 1.7). Those two markings are your on-ice ruler for everything below.

Why location matters so much

The numbers are not close:

• Distance from the net is "the single most important feature by a wide margin" in expected-goals models — models that assign every shot a probability of becoming a goal based on where and how it was taken (Hockey Graphs).
• At even strength, goals per unblocked shot from outside the dangerous area have been under 5% across a decade of NHL data (Micah Blake McCurdy / HockeyViz, 2007–2017 — the map is published on McCurdy's own page, retrieved 28 August 2026, and restated by The Coaches Site). Read that metric literally — it is not shooting percentage. McCurdy defines his terms on the page the map appears on: "'shot' means 'unblocked shot', that is, a shot that is recorded by the NHL as either a goal, a save, or a miss (this latter category includes shots that hit the post or crossbar)." Misses are therefore in the denominator, where shooting percentage counts only shots on goal, so the two numbers are not comparable. And the strength state matters more here than the metric does. McCurdy publishes three maps, one per strength state, and on the power-play one the 5% contour runs out to roughly the blue line, enclosing effectively the whole offensive zone including both points. On the power play, this figure is not a reason to pass up a point shot. What sits behind all of it: a rendered contour plot titled "Goals per Unblocked Shot, 2007-2017", on a 2017 model-description page — no table, no stated sample size, no data release. The power-play reading above is a contour traced off a 484 × 589 image, so where exactly the line falls is approximate. That it reaches the blue line is not.
• Point shots specifically convert at roughly 3% with traffic in front and about 1% or less without. That figure is Greg Revak's. He first printed it on 20 September 2020, in his Hockey IQ Newsletter — "Point shot with traffic score about 3% of the time Point shot without traffic score about 1% or less of the time" — and that printing carries no attribution of any kind (Hockey's Arsenal — Point Shots Suck). Four years later the same author republished a reworked version of the same piece and added a credit, and he added it jointly rather than to any single source: the numbers there follow a shot-location map he credits to HockeyViz (Micah Blake McCurdy), introduced with "[c]ombining that with other data such as Clear Sight Analytics" (The Coaches Site, 11 April 2024). ⚠️ Neither half of that credit can be audited, and one half cannot carry the claim at all. The HockeyViz map is real, public and named — it is the same "Goals per Unblocked Shot, 2007-2017" plot that gives the under-5% figure above — but it plots goal probability by location and has no traffic variable in it, so a with-and-without split cannot be read off it. Clear Sight Analytics is named as an example of "other data", with no dataset, no date and no publication given, and it appears nowhere in the 2020 printing of the identical numbers. So take the direction and nothing else: point shots score rarely, and they score less often still with nobody in front of the goalie. ⚠️ One more thing is worth knowing and worth not overreading. Revak had published a point-shot location range of 1–3% two days earlier, on 18 September 2020, openly credited to that same map; the traffic split prints those two endpoints bare. That coincidence is worth knowing, and it is not evidence that one figure was derived from the other — no source says so, and this document does not. Shooting covers shot-location value, and gives that 1–3% point-shot conversion; take the location number from there rather than from here, and note that it is not independent corroboration of the traffic split — it is a location range for point shots generally, not a screened-versus-unscreened comparison.
• Shots taken from the middle of the ice are more dangerous than shots from sharp angles, and danger climbs steeply as you close the distance: the NHL.com summary of Sportlogiq data charts "the percentage of goals that have been scored from the past three seasons by distance in 10-foot increments from the net", and says of it that "even the tiniest bit further in can make a 5% improvement in your chances to score" (NHL.com, Alison Lukan, 27 November 2021). Be careful with that sentence: the underlying chart is a distribution of where goals came from, so the 5% is a step between ten-foot bands of that distribution, not five percentage points added to your own shooting percentage. The article's own phrasing blurs the two; the figure tells you the direction and steepness of the effect, not its per-shot size.

So a clean look from the slot is worth several times an unscreened shot from the blue line — not a bit more, several times. This is why "just get pucks to the net" is incomplete advice. Volume from the perimeter is not a plan; it is what a team does when it has no plan.

The two levers you actually have

Key

There are only two ways to make a shot dangerous — be able to name which one you are pulling at any moment

Action

Move the puck to a dangerous place — carry it, pass it or drive it into the home-plate area before you shoot

Action

Move the goalie — take away their eyes with a screen, make them move laterally with a pass across the middle, or make them commit with a rebound

Priority

The best chances do both at once — a pass across the slot to a player already in the home-plate area

There are only two ways to make a shot dangerous, and you should be able to name which one you are pulling at any moment:

1. Move the puck to a dangerous place. Get it into the home-plate area before you shoot — by carrying it there, passing it there, or driving it there off a rebound.
2. Move the goalie so a shot from anywhere becomes dangerous. Take away their eyes with a screen, make them move laterally with a pass across the middle, or make them commit with a rebound.

The best chances do both at once: a pass across the slot to a player already in the home-plate area. That is the subject of the next section, and a pass across the slot is the highest-value pass type measured.

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2. The Royal Road — The Highest-Value Pass Type Measured

The Royal Road: What it is

Key

The royal road is an imaginary line down the centre of the ice, lengthwise, from the middle of one net to the middle of the other

Key

A royal road pass — also called a slot-line, cross-seam or cross-slot pass — crosses that line in the offensive zone immediately before a shot

Key

Valiquette's split: green shots follow movement across the road, deflections, one-timers, screens and broken plays; red shots are clean looks with none of that

Risk

Valiquette's percentages are attributed but uncheckable — treat them as illustrative, not as data; the effect itself has been replicated on public data

Risk

Published descriptions of where the line runs disagree — the net-to-net version used here is kept for being the more conservative instruction, not the better supported one

The royal road is an imaginary line running down the centre of the ice, lengthwise, from the middle of one net to the middle of the other. The term was popularised by former NHL goaltender Steve Valiquette, who separated shots into "green" (high-probability — preceded by movement across the road, plus deflections, one-timers, screens and broken plays) and "red" (low-probability — clean looks with no such movement).

A royal road pass — also called a slot-line pass, cross-seam pass or cross-slot pass — is a pass that crosses that centre line in the offensive zone immediately before a shot. Note the cross-: a seam on its own is any gap between two defenders' coverage areas and the lane through it, which need not cross the centre of the ice at all.

Why it beats everything else

Key

A goaltender's save is mostly positioning, not reflexes — a set goalie is already covering most of the net before the shot leaves

Action

Make them move sideways — crossing the road forces a lateral push across the crease to re-square to the new puck position

Read

A goalie forced to move laterally must also re-establish depth and angle, re-find the puck visually, and reset their stick and pads — which is where the five-hole opens

Goal

Get the shot away before they finish that sequence — then it is a desperation save, not a positioning save

Because a goaltender's save is mostly positioning, not reflexes. A set goalie has already squared up to the puck, cut down the angle, and sealed the ice. They are, in effect, already covering most of the net before the shot leaves.

Now make them move sideways. Crossing the royal road forces four jobs on the goalie at once:

• The goalie has to push laterally across the crease to re-square to the new puck position.
• They have to re-establish depth and angle on the new line, which takes time they may not have.
• They have to re-find the puck visually — their sightline was set to one side of the ice and the puck is now on the other.
• And they have to reset their stick and pads, which is where technical errors creep in and the five-hole opens.

If the shot comes before they finish that sequence, they are not making a positioning save — they are making a desperation save. That is a completely different, and much worse, proposition for them.

The evidence

• Shots following a royal road / cross-slot pass finished at 15.50% — the highest-value pass type measured, roughly double the next one (Alan Wells' analysis of Ryan Stimson's Passing Project data, via NHL.com; volunteer-tracked, 51,308 shots at 5v5, counting all attempts rather than shots on goal — see the sourcing note above, and carry that qualification wherever you quote the figure).
• Royal road passes are the most important pre-shot movement variable in expected-goals modelling — shots are much more likely to score when preceded by a pass moving across the ice in front of the goalie (Hockey Graphs).

How to actually create one

Action

Look across before you look along — your first scan off the wall is the far side of the slot, the backdoor and the weak-side dot

Never

Scan up the wall first — by the time you come back, the seam has opened and closed

Technique

Pass to where the shooter is going, not where they are — a pass into the feet costs the extra touch the goalie needed

Options

Carry it across yourself — the half-wall into the high slot, or curling out from behind the net into the slot, both cross the line

Options

Use the player behind the net — a pass out from below the goal line crosses the road almost by definition

Read

Expect the seam to be defended, and expect it to open only briefly

Never

Drive off the half-wall or curl out from behind the net with your head down — you cannot brace for a hit you have not seen, and coming out past the post you can be driven into the goal frame

Knowing the concept is worthless without the habits that produce it. Four practical ones:

• Look across before you look along. When you receive the puck on the wall, your first scan is the far side of the slot — the backdoor (the far post, behind the defence) and the weak-side dot. Only when that is dead do you look at the safe option up the wall. Scanning in the opposite order is what costs you the seam: it opens briefly and closes permanently, and the wall option does not.
• Pass to where the shooter is going, not where they are. A seam pass into a player's feet takes an extra touch, and the extra touch is exactly the time the goalie needed.
• Carry it across yourself. A puck carrier who cuts through the middle drags the goalie laterally the same way a pass does. Driving from the half-wall into the high slot, or curling out from behind the net into the slot, both cross the line.
• Use the player behind the net. A pass out from below the goal line to the slot crosses the royal road almost by definition, and the goalie has to turn their head to track it. See section 8.

The corresponding defensive truth: taking away the middle of the ice is the whole point of most defensive-zone systems. Expect the seam to be defended, and expect it to open only briefly. See Defensive Zone Coverage.

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3. Offensive Zone Structure — The Five-Man Shape

F1, F2, F3 are roles, not people

Key

F1, F2 and F3 are roles defined by order of arrival — first, second and third to the puck — not by whether you are a centre or a winger

Key

Where arrival order and depth in the zone do not coincide, arrival order is what decides the label

Convention

"Hunt, help, high" is the forecheck shorthand — F1 hunts the puck, F2 helps F1, F3 stays high

Position

One player below the puck, one level with it and one above — the outlet that lets the puck go back to safety and can attack the net from behind, the close support, and the shooting option

Position

The level player is close support, usually a short pass away, in the inside lane rather than flat on the boards — that is the player who receives the bump

Key

The player above the puck is the shooting option on a low-to-high and your first line of defence the moment you lose it

Convention

Rotation rules are a coaching choice and change who may drop below the puck — ask which rotation your team runs before you decide someone is out of position

Goal

Give the puck carrier at least two options at all times; players without the puck keep moving to provide them

F1, F2 and F3 are roles defined by order of arrival — who gets to the puck first, second and third — not by whether you are a centre or a winger. They rotate constantly, and they are reassigned every time the sequence of arrival changes. If the left winger is first in on the puck below the goal line, they are F1; if the centre is the last of the three to arrive and ends up at the top of the circle, they are F3. A common shorthand for the forecheck version is "hunt, help, high" — F1 hunts the puck, F2 helps F1, F3 stays high.

In an established possession, order of arrival and depth in the zone usually coincide — the first forward in is the deepest — which is why the roles map so neatly onto the below / level / above shape described next. When they do not coincide, arrival order is what decides the label.

In an established offensive-zone possession, the three forwards should always be arranged so there is:

• One player below the puck — deeper toward the goal line than the puck carrier. This is the outlet that lets the puck go backwards to safety, and the player who can attack the net from behind. Without them, every loss of the puck is a clean escape for the defence.
• One player level with the puck — close support, usually a short pass away, in the inside lane rather than flat on the boards. This is the player who receives the bump and keeps the possession alive.
• One player above the puck — higher in the zone, toward the top of the circles or the point. This player is the shooting option on a low-to-high pass and the first line of defence if you lose it.

That "below / level / above" arrangement is what forms the attack triangle, and it is the actual content of the advice "keep the triangle." The triangle gives you width and depth at once, which means the puck carrier always has at least two passing options at different angles. Coaching material states the requirement plainly: the puck carrier should have at least two options at all times, and players without the puck should keep moving to provide them (Creating Offense with a 5-Man Unit).

Rotation: the triangle moves, the shape does not

Key

The three forwards hold no fixed spots — as the puck moves, everyone rotates so the shape is preserved

Read

Puck from the half-wall down to the corner → the corner player is now F1, the old carrier rotates up, the high player holds

Read

Puck low-to-high to the point → the low forwards attack the net and the slot; the high forward screens or gets to the top of the circle

Read

Puck behind the net → the net-front player becomes level support at the far post; the far-side forward slides into the slot

Never

Let the triangle sit entirely on the perimeter — at least one forward is always in or attacking the home-plate area

The three forwards do not hold fixed spots. As the puck moves, everyone rotates so the shape is preserved:

• Puck goes from the half-wall down to the corner → the corner player is now F1 (below/level), the old carrier rotates up, the high player holds.
• Puck goes low-to-high to the point → the low forwards attack the net and the slot; the high forward screens or gets to the top of the circle.
• Puck goes behind the net → the player who was net-front becomes the level support at the far post; the far-side forward slides into the slot.

The one non-negotiable: at least one forward is always in or attacking the home-plate area. A triangle that is entirely on the perimeter is just three players passing the puck around the outside of a defence that is perfectly happy about it.

The defencemen's three depths

Position

Just inside the blue line — the point — is the default: the low-to-high outlet, the shooting threat that stops the defence collapsing, and the safety net

Technique

Stay a stride inside the line, not on it — if the puck completely crosses out, the zone is gone and everyone has to re-enter

Rule

Losing the zone is not off-side — a delayed off-side arises when the puck is played back IN with attackers still inside (NHL and IIHF 83.3); the puck merely leaving nullifies one (USA Hockey 630(d)(1))

Rule

⚠️ Check your book before counting on tagging up — USA Hockey 630(d) grants the delayed off-side only at Youth 15-Only and Girls 16U and above, High School and Adult; below those 630(c) stops play at once. The NHL, IIHF and Hockey Canada 6.11(b) set no such floor

Position

Down to the top of the circle is the activated position — shoot from a better angle, walk the line (skate sideways along the blue line), or receive in the high slot, and still recover

Risk

Below the circles is always a commitment — below the hash marks you are effectively a fourth forward

Never

Go that deep before someone has taken your job at the blue line — before you go, not after

An offensive-zone defenceman is always at one of three depths, and the difference between them is the difference between a good defenceman and a liability:

Diagram from defender

1. Just inside the blue line (the point). The default. You are the outlet for low-to-high, the shooting threat that stops the defence collapsing entirely, and the safety net against a counter-attack. Stay a stride inside the line, not on it — if the puck completely crosses out, the zone is cleared and everyone has to re-enter. To be precise, a puck leaving is not "offside" and is not a delayed off-side either — it breaks no rule at all. Offside under NHL Rule 83.1 is about attackers' skates preceding the puck into the zone, and what a puck leaving costs you is simply the zone: everyone must now re-enter behind it. The delayed off-side is the situation that arises next, when the puck is played back into the zone while your teammates are still inside it — NHL and IIHF Rule 83.3 describe "an attacking player (or players) has preceded the puck across the attacking blue line", and the linesperson's arm goes up rather than the whistle going. Your teammates clear it by tagging up. ⚠️ Before you count on that recovery, find out which book you are under. USA Hockey Rule 630(d) grants the delayed off-side and the tag-up only "(For all Youth 15-Only levels and above, all Girls 16U levels and above, High School and Adult classifications only)"; below those classifications Rule 630(c) simply stops play, so the whistle is immediate and there is nothing to recover. The NHL, the IIHF and Hockey Canada set no such floor — Hockey Canada's Rule 6.11(b) carries no classification clause at all, and under those three books the recovery is yours at every level. 🇬🇧 Britain runs the IIHF book, and the IHUK In-House Rules carry no amendment to Rule 83, so the tag-up is yours at every age band there too — Rink Map and Glossary sets out that derivation and the limits on it. See Rules Primer.
2. Down to the top of the circle. The activated position. You step down to shoot from a better angle, to walk the line — skate sideways along the blue line to change the shooting angle — or to receive a pass in the high slot. You are still recoverable: you can turn and get back to the line before most counter-attacks develop.
3. Below the circles — too deep. Not always wrong, but always a commitment. If you go below the hash marks (the short lines at the sides of the faceoff circles), you are effectively a fourth forward and someone must take your job at the blue line before you go, not after.

Who covers for whom

Convention

If one defenceman leaves the blue line, the other stays — two on the line at all times is the house default, not a law

Options

Teams running a five-man rotation, or green-lighting both defencemen, cover the line with whichever player is highest instead

Action

If a defenceman goes below the line and gets the puck, they play as a forward until the play ends — F3 fills in at the blue line

Action

If a defenceman goes down and does not get the puck, recover defensive position first, then look to attack again

Never

Chase after a failed activation — that is how odd-man rushes against you start

Action

Say it out loud — "I'm going", "I've got you", "hold"; silent rotations are the ones that leave the blue line empty

These are the house default's rules, not laws of hockey, and they are short and worth memorising:

• If one defenceman leaves the blue line, the other stays. You want two players on the line at all times. This is the house default here and the assumption to play on if nobody has told you otherwise; it is widely taught, though nobody has published a count. But teams running a five-man rotation, or giving both defencemen a standing green light, deliberately break it and cover the line with whichever player is highest. See the pinch note at the end of section 10 and Forechecking Systems.
• If a defenceman goes below the line and gets the puck, they play as a forward until the play ends — and F3 must fill in at the blue line for them.
• If a defenceman goes down and does not get the puck, their first job is to recover defensive position, then look to attack again. Chasing after a failed activation is how odd-man rushes against you start.
• Say it out loud. "I'm going," "I've got you," "hold." Silent rotations are the ones that leave the blue line empty. See On-Ice Communication.

Realistic alternatives

Diagram from special teams

Options

Overload / strong-side load — four players on the puck side, one weak-side outlet; wins board battles, gives up the weak-side seam

Options

Five-man rotation — defencemen rotate into forward spots and forwards cover the line as routine rather than emergency

Options

1-3-1 spread — one at the point, two half-walls, one bumper in the middle, one net front; common on the power play

Risk

The five-man rotation requires everyone to be comfortable at the blue line

Never

Confuse the bumper with the net-front player — two different jobs at two different depths

• Overload / strong-side load. Four players are loaded onto the puck side, with only one weak-side outlet. Wins board battles and grinds teams down; gives up the weak-side seam and the quick change of point.
• Five-man rotation ("position-less" or high cycle). Defencemen rotate into forward spots and forwards cover the line as a matter of routine rather than emergency. This is how modern NHL teams with skating defencemen play. It requires everyone to be comfortable at the blue line.
• 1-3-1 spread. One at the point, two on the half-walls, one bumper in the middle of the ice between them, one net front. Common on the power play (see Special Teams) and occasionally used at even strength. The bumper is not the net-front player — they are two different jobs at two different depths.

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4. Cycling

Cycling: What it is

Key

A cycle rotates the forwards around the low offensive zone — corner, half-wall, behind the net — protecting the puck from the defence

Action

Move the puck short distances, a few feet at a time, and rotate through the positions

Goal

Make the defence keep re-solving the same problem

A cycle is a possession tactic in which the forwards rotate around the low offensive zone — corner, half-wall, behind the net — passing the puck short distances to each other while protecting it from the defence. Think of a wheel: the puck moves a few feet at a time, the players rotate through the positions, and the defence has to keep re-solving the same problem.

Why it works

Goal

Force defenders to move and decide repeatedly — every rotation asks "collapse low or hold the slot?", and over 30 or 40 seconds someone answers wrong

Key

A cycle is a low-turnover way to hold the puck — a board pass that fails stays near the wall, where one picked off through the middle goes the other way with your forwards below it

Key

Ranking the middle pass as the more expensive one to lose is coaching consensus rather than a counted comparison — nothing published classifies odd-man rushes by the play that created them

Goal

Tire the defenders — they skate without the puck and cannot change, and tired coverage shrinks toward the puck, which opens the slot

Goal

Buy time for your defencemen and late forwards to join and get set

• It forces defenders to move and decide, repeatedly. Each rotation asks the defence "do you collapse low or hold the slot?" Over 30 or 40 seconds of this, someone answers wrong.
• It is a low-turnover way to hold the puck. Passes along the boards, away from the middle of the ice, are the cheapest ones to miss: the puck stays near the wall with bodies around it. One picked off through the middle is the one that goes the other way with your forwards below it. Ranking the middle pass as the more expensive one to lose is coaching consensus rather than a counted comparison — nothing published classifies odd-man rushes by the play that created them, and Defending the Rush sets out how they are made.
• It tires the defenders. They are skating without the puck, which is far more exhausting than skating with it, and they cannot change lines. A tired defender's coverage shrinks toward the puck, which opens the slot.
• It buys time for your defencemen and late forwards to join. A cycle that lasts eight seconds is often just a cycle that lasted long enough for your point men to get set.

The mechanics

Technique

Low-to-low — pass backwards and down to a teammate arriving behind you, then rotate up into the space they just left

Read

If the checker is still in front of you, rim it — onward around the boards, past the player sealing you to the wall

Read

If the checker has skated past you, reverse it — back against the flow, into the space they have just vacated

Risk

Picking the wrong one of those two is a leading cycle turnover — nobody has counted cycle turnovers by cause, so treat the ranking as coaching craft and the read itself as the point

Technique

Bump pass — fire the puck hard at a spot on the wall, not at your teammate, and call it; a bump nobody expects is a turnover

Technique

Pivot / cutback — cut back up the wall you came down; a defender committed toward the corner cannot turn as fast as you

Options

Scissor / switch — carrier and support skate at each other and cross, support passing on the outside; the carrier may drop it or keep it

Never

Turn your back to the boards when that contact comes, and never duck. Skates parallel to the wall instead, forearm and hip to it — not the point of your shoulder. Head up, chin off your chest

Low-to-low (the true cycle). The puck carrier on the half-wall or in the corner passes the puck backwards and down to a teammate arriving behind them, then rotates up into the space their teammate just left. Two variants matter and they are not the same play:

• Rim — the puck goes onward around the boards, following the curve of the rink, past the checker who is sealing you against the wall. Beats pressure that has you pinned.
• Reverse — the puck goes back against the flow, into the space a checker has just skated out of. Beats pressure that has over-committed and gone past you.

Picking the wrong one is a leading cycle turnover — nobody has counted cycle turnovers by cause, so take that as coaching craft rather than a measurement; what is not in doubt is that the two reads point in opposite directions and one of them is wrong every time. The rule of thumb: if the checker is still in front of you, rim it; if they have skated past you, reverse it.

The bump pass off the wall. Rather than passing to a teammate directly, you fire the puck hard into the boards so it caroms to a spot. It is unblockable by a stick in the passing lane and it does not care about a defender standing between you. Aim at a spot on the wall, not at your teammate, and call it — a bump nobody expects is a turnover.

The pivot / cutback. You skate down the boards, run out of space, and cut back to skate back up the wall where you came from. This is a high-percentage individual cycle move, and widely taught as the pick of them — a coaching judgement, not a measured one; no source here ranks cycle moves — because a defender who has committed their momentum toward the corner cannot change direction as fast as you can. It buys you two or three seconds and it usually opens the low-to-high pass.

Low-to-high. The puck goes up to the point or the top of the circle. Covered in full in section 5.

The scissor / switch. The puck carrier and a supporting teammate skate towards each other and cross, with the support player passing on the outside. The carrier can drop the puck or keep it. Defenders who are switching assignments during a scissor are defenders who are briefly covering nobody.

When to cycle and when to attack the net

Read

Cycle when the defence is set, structured and between you and the net, and no dangerous shot exists

Read

Cycle when your defencemen are not yet established at the line, or you are protecting a lead and burning clock with possession

Read

Attack immediately when a defender turns their back to the puck, or a defenceman pinches and the ice behind them opens

Read

Attack immediately when the slot is unoccupied by a defender, or the goalie is moving or unset

Read

Attack immediately when your net-front player has beaten their check to the inside

Cycle when:

• The defence is set, structured and between you and the net;
• No dangerous shot exists and forcing one means a low-percentage attempt or a turnover;
• Your defencemen are not yet established at the line;
• You are protecting a lead or trying to burn clock with possession (see Game Management).

Stop cycling and attack immediately when:

• A defender turns their back to the puck;
• A defenceman pinches or over-commits and the ice behind them opens;
• The slot is unoccupied by a defender;
• A goalie is moving or unset;
• Your net-front player has beaten their check to the inside.

The failure: cycling for its own sake

Key

A cycle is a set-up, not an outcome

Never

Cycle for its own sake — three or four rotations that never threaten the net burn thirty seconds at zero risk to the defence

Goal

End the cycle in one of four things — a shot from home plate, a royal road pass, a low-to-high with a screen, or a net drive

Risk

Nobody in front of the net means even a good shot has no tip, no screen and no rebound support

Read

If the puck never goes above the goal line and never goes to the middle, you are passing around the outside of a box with no reason to move

This is the defining amateur error in the offensive zone. A team gets the puck low, cycles it around three or four times, looks organised and busy, and never once threatens the net. The defence is entirely content — you have used up thirty seconds of your own shift, in their zone, at zero risk to them.

A cycle is a set-up, not an outcome. If a cycle does not end in one of: a shot from the home-plate area, a royal road pass, a low-to-high with a screen, or a net drive, it did not accomplish anything. Two clear symptoms:

• Nobody is in front of the net. Cycling with an empty goalmouth means even a good shot has no tip, no screen and no rebound support.
• The puck never goes above the goal line and never goes to the middle. You are passing along the outside of a box that has no reason to move.

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5. Low-to-High

The play

Action

Pass from a low position — corner, half-wall, behind the net — up to a defenceman at the point or the top of the circle, who shoots

Read

Low-to-high is the standard way to generate a shot when the defence has collapsed low and taken away everything in tight

Action

The passer feeds the point then supports toward the strong-side hash marks — bail-out outlet and rebound position

Technique

The defenceman walks the puck toward the middle before shooting — it changes the angle, moves the goalie laterally and opens a lane

Position

One forward to the net front to screen and tip; one supporting in the high slot to form a triangle with the point

Read

The weak-side defenceman reads for a rebound squirting to their side and is ready to jump on it

Options

D-to-D across the top first — the goalie has to slide and the shot comes from the other side

Low-to-high means passing the puck from a low position (corner, half-wall, behind the net) up to a defenceman at the point or the top of the circle, who shoots. It is the standard way to generate a shot when the defence has collapsed low and taken away everything in tight.

The sequence, with everyone's job named:

1. The passer feeds the point and then supports — skating toward the strong-side hash marks, both to be an outlet if the defenceman needs a bail-out and to be in position for a rebound.
2. The defenceman receives it and walks the puck toward the middle before shooting. This matters enormously: walking the line changes the angle, forces the goalie to track laterally, and often opens a lane through the shot-blockers.
3. One forward gets to the net front to screen and tip.
4. One forward supports in the high slot, giving the defenceman a second option and forming a triangle with the point — meaning the puck can be moved again quickly instead of being fired into a shin pad.
5. The weak-side defenceman reads for a rebound squirting to their side and is ready to jump on it.

A common addition is D-to-D across the top before the shot: the strong-side defenceman moves it to their partner, the goalie has to slide across, and the shot comes from the other side. On the net-centre-to-net-centre geometry this document uses, that is a royal road crossing at the top of the zone — less valuable than one in the slot, but far better than a static point shot. (Under the narrower, zone-limited description of the road noted in Section 2, a lateral pass out at the blue line would not cross it at all. The coaching point survives either way: the goalie still has to slide, and a shot arriving before they are set is worth more than one arriving after.)

Why it beats a cycle that never shoots

Goal

Release the puck — a screened point shot produces a rebound, a tip, a scramble, a whistle in your favour and a line change for you

Key

Even at a low conversion rate with traffic, the shot generates chaos in the home-plate area — and that is where goals live

Never

Cycle without ever releasing — it produces none of that

Because a shot from the point with a screen and a net-front presence produces things a cycle does not: a rebound, a tip, a scramble, a whistle in your favour, a line change for you and none for them. Even at a with-traffic conversion rate of roughly 3% — Greg Revak's figure, and uncheckable — the shot generates chaos in the home-plate area, and chaos in the home-plate area is where goals live. A cycle that never releases produces none of that.

The honest caveat

Key

Low-to-high is a means, not an end — at even strength a point shot is among the lowest-percentage shots on the ice, and blocked more often than any other

Key

The point-shot caution is an even-strength one — on the power play the same map puts roughly the whole zone at or above that under-5% figure, so it is no argument against a point shot there

Risk

They also generate fewer rebounds than shots from lower in the zone

Priority

Low-to-high is only worth doing when the net front is occupied — a screen, a tip threat and two players hunting the rebound

Never

Fire it from the point with nobody in front — the identical shot is a giveaway with extra steps

Low-to-high is a means, not an end. Remember the numbers from section 1, and their scope: at even strength a point shot is among the lowest-percentage shots on the ice, and it is blocked more often than a shot from anywhere else — but section 1's under-5% figure is an even-strength one, and on the power play the same map puts the whole zone at or above it — approximate in where the line falls, not in its direction — and analysis by Alex Novet found they generate fewer rebounds than shots from lower in the zone (via The Coaches Site).

There is a real-world cautionary tale here. The Seattle Kraken under Dave Hakstol built an offensive-zone scheme heavily around low-to-high and generated the third-most point shots per sixty minutes in the league — while producing shots with the lowest expected value per shot of any team (Sound of Hockey, 2021-22 season). Both quoted phrases were checked against that page verbatim on 28 July 2026 — but neither number is Sound of Hockey's own. The article credits the point-shot rate to Corey Sznajder's manual tracking and the expected-value figure to TopDownHockey/JFreshHockey, which it labels "paid access". Neither underlying dataset is public, so this is a secondary source restating two private ones; treat it as a reported anecdote about one team in one season, not as a checkable statistic.

The lesson is not "don't go low-to-high." It is: low-to-high is only worth doing when the net front is occupied. A point shot with a screen, a tip threat and two players hunting the rebound is a good play. The identical shot with nobody in front is a giveaway with extra steps.

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6. Net-Front Play

The net front is the least glamorous piece of productive real estate in hockey, and section 1 has the numbers behind the second half of that: shots from the home-plate area convert several times better than shots from outside it. It is also the place where players most often do the job badly while believing they are doing it.

Screening

Position

Inside the faceoff dots, six to eight feet out from the goal line — and both feet off the red crease line, which the arc reaches at six, so live at the far end of that range

Technique

Stand between the goalie's eyes and the puck, not between the goalie and the net. Slide with the point man as they walk the line

Technique

Chest up and square to the shooter, hips low, feet wide, knees bent — the posture of a squat, not of a bow

Action

Be still at the moment of release — constant shuffling gives the goalie flashes of the puck through the gaps

Never

Watch the shot. Look at the puck through your legs or over your shoulder instead, then get your eyes back to the ice in front of you

Never

Plant at the net front without knowing where the near post is — you get moved sideways by a defender you are feeling rather than watching. Head up and chin off your chest instead

Never

Duck away from the shot. Meet a post or the boards with an arm or a leg instead, never your head first — USA Hockey's wording, and a flexed neck is what turns that collision into a spinal injury

Rule

A screen from outside the crease without contact is normally legal — the sentence in NHL and IIHF Rule 69.1 that actually disallows a goal for positioning is keyed to an attacker who "enters the goal crease", and 69.4, the outside-the-crease rule, has no positioning limb at all

Rule

All four books leave the no-contact screen set from outside the crease alone — NHL and IIHF 69.3 key it to a "significant position" within the crease, and USA Hockey and Hockey Canada write no screening or goaltender-vision provision at all. Inside the paint all four cost you

A screen is standing in the goaltender's line of sight so they cannot see the puck. A screen from outside the crease, without contact, is normally legal, and referees allow it constantly. The qualification — see the rules section below — is the crease, not the sightline: the sentence in Rule 69.1 that actually disallows a goal reaches an attacker who "enters the goal crease", 69.3's no-contact screen ground asks for a "significant position within the goal crease", and 69.4, which is the rule for outside the crease, has no positioning limb at all. For a screen set from outside the paint, the other two books have nothing either — USA Hockey writes no goaltender-vision provision at all, in its playing rules or its Casebook, and Hockey Canada's only two references to the goaltender's view both reach a player standing in the crease. ⚠️ So the line, not the sightline, is what you have to respect — and where exactly the line runs is itself unsettled between the books. Rink Map and Glossary sets that out. Keep your skates clear of both.

The mechanics of doing it well:

• Stand between the goalie's eyes and the puck, not between the goalie and the net. These are different lines, and they change as the puck moves. If the point man walks the line, you must slide with them to stay on the line. A screen that was correct three seconds ago is now just a player standing near the net.
• Tall chest, low hips — the two halves do different jobs. Keep your chest up and square to the shooter so you present the biggest possible obstruction to the goalie's sightline; crouching, turning sideways or ducking away from the shot all shrink the surface you are blocking and let the goalie find the puck around you. ⚠️ Ducking has a second cost, and it outlives the screen: it puts your chin on your chest, which is the posture the head-first spinal-injury mechanism turns on — USA Hockey's Rule One of Heads Up Hockey is "Heads Up — Don't Duck!", and that is a safety-programme principle about collisions rather than a point about shots, so it still holds on the shift where the screen came to nothing. At the same time keep your hips low and your feet wide, knees bent — that is what stops a defenceman moving you. Standing tall and narrow, with straight legs, is why players get shoved out of the paint; folding at the waist is why goalies see the shot. You want the posture of a squat, not of a bow.
• Be still at the moment of release. Plant and obstruct. Constant shuffling gives the goalie flashes of the puck through the gaps.
• Do not watch the shot. Look at the puck through your legs or over your shoulder, then get your eyes back to the ice in front of you. Turning your body to follow the flight of the shot is how you both un-screen the goalie and miss the rebound.
• Position: inside the faceoff dots, roughly six to eight feet out from the goal line — with both feet off the red crease line. ⚠️ The crease arc is six feet at its deepest, straight out from the middle of the goal line, so the bottom of that range is the line itself: live at the far end of it. Deep enough to obstruct the goalie's view and to reach rebounds, far enough out to stay clear of the crease. Note the geometry, because it is easy to get wrong: the crease is 8 feet wide at the goal line and 6 feet deep, because the arc that closes it is struck with a six-foot radius from the centre of the goal line (Rule 1.7) — the six feet is the depth, not the half-width. So "three feet out from the goal line" is inside the paint, not clear of it. Live just beyond the arc.

Tips and deflections

Technique

Blade on the ice, always — the overwhelming majority of tippable pucks come in low

Key

You are redirecting, not shooting — ten to thirty degrees beats a set goalie, and a big swing usually misses the puck entirely

Technique

Angle the blade, absorb slightly, do not follow through — hard hands send it into the glass

Action

Present a target — hold the blade out in the lane where you want the puck, and shout for it

Rule

A puck contacting an attacking player's stick above the crossbar is not a goal, and where it hits the stick is what counts (NHL and IIHF 80.3, NHL 78.5(vi), Hockey Canada 6.9(b)) — but only the goal off that contact dies: a teammate who gains it and shoots scores (IIHF Handbook 2025/26, 80.9(c))

Rule

USA Hockey is not that rule — 621(d) sets the ceiling at the shoulder and writes no crossbar test, and its Casebook 621 Situation 7 refuses the contact point: "When any part of the stick is carried above the shoulders, the entire stick is considered to be high"

Rule

So a tip between your own shoulders and the crossbar is a goal under the NHL, the IIHF and Hockey Canada and no goal under USA Hockey — tip low in all four, which is where the pucks are anyway

Rule

The whistle diverges less than the ceiling does — NHL and IIHF Rule 80.1 and Hockey Canada 6.9(a) stop play only once the offending team gains possession and control of the high-batted puck, so a loose one is played on until both teams abandon it, which stops play in all four (NHL and IIHF 72.3)

Rule

USA Hockey 621(d) prints the opposite default — play stops "immediately" unless the puck "is batted to an opponent who gains possession" — but its Casebook 621 Situation 15 applies the same possession test the other books do, so follow the tip up unless it goes straight in

Rule

A high stick on the puck is one rule; one on a person is another — NHL and IIHF 60, USA Hockey 621(a) to 621(c), Hockey Canada 9.5, or 7.6 Head Contact via 6.9(c) in minor and female hockey, none capped at a minor; in CARHA leagues 62(b) is a major, plus a game misconduct if intentional or injuring

Rule

A puck deflected in off your skate or body is a good goal with no distinct kicking motion (NHL Rules 78.4 and 78.5(ii)) and no deliberate hand or body bat (78.5(i))

A tip or deflection is changing the direction of an incoming shot with your stick blade. It is devastating because it destroys the goalie's read: they have tracked and set for a puck travelling one way, and it is now travelling another way from six feet out.

• Blade on the ice, always. The overwhelming majority of tippable pucks come in low. A stick held off the ice at the net front is a stick doing nothing.
• You are redirecting, not shooting. A small change of angle — ten to thirty degrees — is enough to beat a set goalie. A big swing usually misses the puck entirely.
• Angle the blade, absorb slightly, do not follow through. Soft hands change direction; hard hands send it into the glass.
• Present a target. Shooters at the point aim at the tipper's stick. Hold the blade out in the lane where you want the puck, and shout for it.

Two rules to know before you tip, and both cost teams goals every season. The first of them is not the same rule in every book, and the difference is a whole hand's width of stick height:

• A puck that enters the net after contacting an attacking player's stick above the height of the crossbar is not a goal (NHL Rules 80.3 and 78.5(vi)). Rule 80.3 is the fuller statement: "When an attacking player causes the puck to enter the opponent's goal by contacting the puck above the height of the crossbar, either directly or deflected off any player or official, the goal shall not be allowed. The determining factor is where the puck makes contact with the stick. If the puck makes contact with the stick at or below the level of the crossbar and enters the goal, this goal shall be allowed." It is where the puck contacts the stick that matters, not where your hands are. Tip low.

  🇬🇧 The IIHF prints 80.3 in the same words, down to "the determining factor is where the puck makes contact with the stick", unchanged between the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions — so a British player is under the crossbar test too. Hockey Canada 6.9(b) is the most explicit of the three about what that test forgives: the deciding factor "is the height of the stick relative to the height of the crossbar", and the goal counts where the puck contacts a part of the stick below the crossbar "(despite some other portion of the stick being above the crossbar)". ⚠️ Both sides of the split are answered again at the interpretation layer, on the same fact pattern, and they still disagree. The IIHF Situation Handbook, Situation 80.6, puts an attacker carrying the blade "clearly above the crossbar" with the puck striking the shaft near the waist and going in, and answers "No. This is a good goal." Hockey Canada's Interpretation 4 to Rule 6.9(a)(i) puts the same play — stick above the shoulder, puck striking the butt-end below it — and answers "GOAL." That is the exact fact pattern USA Hockey's Casebook answers "No" to, below. ⚠️ And the crossbar ceiling only kills the goal along the chain Rule 80.3 names — "either directly or deflected off any Player or official" — while between the crossbar and your own shoulders there is no high-sticking violation at all, because Rule 80.1’s ceiling is the shoulders. The IIHF Situation Handbook works that band through at Situation 80.9: contact above the crossbar but below the shoulders, deflected off a defender (a) or off a teammate (b), is "No" both times; but where the puck "ends up on the stick" of a teammate who then shoots and scores, (c) answers "Yes" — "the goal was scored as a result of the teammate’s shot, not the batting of the puck out of the air by the teammate. Since the stick was below the height of the player’s shoulders when the player contacted the puck, it was not an illegal high-stick." (That answer says "teammate" where it means the player who batted the puck; the slip is the book’s and it is quoted as printed.) So a puck you tipped between the crossbar and your shoulders is still live and no whistle is coming: break the chain and the next shot counts. Above your shoulders it is the other rule, and there — under the NHL and the IIHF — play stops as soon as your own team gains possession and control; USA Hockey prints a different default, set out below.

• A puck deflected into the net off your skate or body is a good goal — provided there is no "distinct kicking motion" (NHL Rules 78.4 and 78.5(ii)), and provided you did not deliberately bat it in with your hand or body (Rule 78.5(i)). So you may absolutely turn your skate to redirect a puck; you may not kick it.

Hunting rebounds

Read

Anticipate where it goes — a pad tends to squirt back toward the corner it came from, a blocker to the shooter's off side, a chest to drop in the paint

Risk

Treat those as tendencies, not rules — a goalie angling their surfaces deliberately will break all three on purpose

Action

Shoot it back immediately — do not settle it, do not look for a pass; the window is one or two seconds while the goalie is down

Options

Go to the far post when you get tied up — nobody is covering it and it opens the weak-side chance

Key

The defending team recovers roughly 60% of rebounds — Greg Revak's figure, read off a chart by Alex Novet — so you win that race by being there before the shot

Read

Revak's 60% summarises the whole chart rather than one zone — Novet plots offensive recovery flat at 38–42% wherever the shot came from; no league, season or sample size is stated anywhere

• Anticipate where it goes, don't react to where it went. The rough tendencies: a puck hitting a pad tends to squirt back toward the corner it came from, a puck hitting the blocker toward the shooter's off side, a puck hitting the chest to drop in the paint. Treat these as tendencies, not rules — they are coaching craft, not measured rebound distributions, and a goalie who is angling their surfaces deliberately (which is what Goaltender teaches them to do) will break all three on purpose. Know where the shot is coming from, pre-load your feet that way, and be ready to be wrong.
• Shoot it back immediately. Do not settle it, do not look for a pass. The window is one or two seconds, while the goalie is down and out of position.
• Go to the far post when you get tied up. If your check has sealed you off from the near side, the far post is a rebound location nobody is covering and it opens the weak-side chance.
• Understand the odds. The defending team recovers roughly 60% of rebounds. That is exactly why the net-front job is a job and not a bonus — you have to be there, deliberately, before the shot, or you lose that race by default. Note whose figure this is, because its two halves have different authors. The chart behind it is Alex Novet's, and it never prints 60%: it plots the share of rebounds recovered by the attacking team, zone by zone, at 38–42%. The 60% is Greg Revak's — what is left of 100 once Novet's number is taken off, with the chart's eight zones rolled into one — published in his Hockey's Arsenal newsletter on 20 September 2020 and restated under his byline at The Coaches Site. Rolling the zones together is fair here — recovery is flat wherever the shot came from, and Revak says so in terms: "Rebounds recovered by the offense around about 40%, despite where the shot that created the rebound started from." What the figure lacks is scope: no league, no season and no sample size is stated for it — not on the chart, and not in either article, whose other dates belong to other studies. So unlike the neighbouring figures in this document, it is a direction rather than a number you can check.

Goaltender interference — the actual standard

Rule

NHL and IIHF Rule 69.1 — an attacker's position, inside or outside the crease, does not by itself decide the goal; goals "should be disallowed only if" you impair the goalie's ability to move freely or defend it, by positioning or contact — a ceiling, not a direction to disallow

Rule

The sentence in NHL and IIHF 69.1 that actually disallows a goal is keyed to the crease — an attacker who "enters the goal crease" and impairs the goalkeeper's ability to defend it; 69.4, the outside-the-crease rule, has no positioning limb at all

Rule

NHL Rule 69.1 — a goal is disallowed where you initiate intentional or deliberate contact with the goalie, inside or outside the crease

Rule

NHL Rule 69.4 answers two questions from different clauses — on the goal, contact outside the crease that is more than incidental disallows it, and incidental contact does not

Rule

NHL 69.4's penalty permission is conditional — a goalie outside the crease is not "fair game" and unnecessary contact is penalised "in every case"; incidental contact is permitted only "when the goalkeeper is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease" and you tried to avoid it

Rule

Inside the crease (NHL 69.3), contact you initiate — incidental or otherwise — while the goalie is in the crease voids the goal, subject to the rebound and loose-puck exception at 69.7

Rule

NHL and IIHF 69.3's no-contact ground needs a significant position in the crease — a substantial part of your body there for more than an instantaneous period — that both obstructs the goalie's vision and impairs their ability to defend the goal

Rule

The IIHF Situation Handbook does not apply 69.3's test — asked about a player "in the crease screening the goalkeeper", its Situation 69.1 answers "the goal shall be disallowed". The Handbook ranks below the rulebook, but do not play the crease to that edge

Rule

NHL and IIHF 69.3 — after any contact by a goalkeeper establishing position in the crease, give ground at once or a goal is disallowed. The rule adds a penalty "whether or not a goal is scored", but both books' own tables assess none where the goal is scored

Rule

Keep your skates off the painted crease line — USA Hockey's Note to 625(b) counts "(including crease lines)" as crease and Hockey Canada's glossary agrees; the NHL's and IIHF's own Situation 5E allows a goal on the line, while IIHF Rule 1.7 says the line belongs to the crease

Never

Plant your feet in the blue paint. Screen from outside it instead, where a screen without contact is normally legal and worth doing constantly

This is the most misunderstood rule in the offensive zone, so here is what NHL Rule 69 actually says.

The governing premise (69.1): an attacking player's position, whether inside or outside the crease, should not by itself determine whether a goal is allowed. The rule then names two things and says a goal "should be disallowed only if" one of them is present:

1. an attacking player, by positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper's ability to move freely within the crease or defend the goal; or
2. an attacking player initiates intentional or deliberate contact with the goalkeeper, inside or outside the crease.

"Contact" means any contact between goalie and attacker, by stick or by any part of the body.

Outside the crease (69.1, 69.4): Rule 69.4 asks two questions and answers them from different clauses, so keep them apart. On the goal, contact that is more than incidental disallows it, and incidental contact does not. On the penalty, the permission is conditional, and the condition is the half that gets dropped. A goalie outside the crease is explicitly not "fair game", and the appropriate penalty "should be assessed in every case where an attacking player makes unnecessary contact with the goalkeeper." Incidental contact is permitted only "when the goalkeeper is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease", and then only if you made a reasonable effort to avoid it. ⚠️ So a goaltender who has come out to challenge, or who is set outside the paint with the puck somewhere else, is not inside that permission at all — bump him there and the penalty is the one the rule says should be assessed in every case. How those two paragraphs interact where the contact was genuinely incidental but the goalkeeper was not playing the puck is stated in neither book, and is not resolved here. See Rules Primer, which sets out all four books.

Inside the crease (69.3): this is much stricter. If you initiate contact with a goalie who is in the crease — incidental or otherwise — and a goal is scored, the goal is disallowed. Further, if you establish a significant position within the crease so as to obstruct the goalie's vision and impair their ability to defend the goal, the goal is disallowed even with no contact at all. ⚠️ Both halves of that second ground are load-bearing, and the rule defines the first half rather than leaving it to the eye — drop either and it sounds a good deal stricter than it is. The operative wording is "establishes a significant position within the goal crease, so as to obstruct the goalkeeper's vision and impair his ability to defend his goal" — the obstruction and the impairment, not the obstruction on its own. And a player does that "when, in the Referee's judgment, his body, or a substantial portion thereof, is within the goal crease for more than an instantaneous period of time." So a body that crosses the paint and is gone has not met it, and neither has a body that is in there without impairing the goalie's ability to defend the goal.

Rebounds, loose pucks and being pushed into the goalie

Rule

NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7 — on a rebound, or in a loose-puck race you and the goalie are both making, incidental contact is permitted in or out of the crease and the goal is allowed — but not so far as pushing the goalie into the net with the puck; USA Hockey and Hockey Canada write no such carve-out

Rule

NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7 disallow the goal where a goalkeeper is pushed into the net together with the puck by an attacking player after making a stop, and appropriate penalties may follow — the rule needs all three of those conditions, not any push at all

Rule

NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7 — where the referee judges that a defending player pushed or fouled the attacker into causing the goalkeeper to be pushed into the net together with the puck, the goal "can be permitted", not must, and 69.7 sets no condition on it — the reasonable-effort test is 69.1's

Rule

NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7 — where the puck is under a player in or around the crease, deliberately or otherwise, no goal can be scored by pushing that player and the puck into the net, and appropriate penalties follow if applicable

Rule

A defending player other than the goalkeeper who deliberately covers the puck in the crease gives up a penalty shot (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.6, cross-referenced at 67.4 and 69.7) — a goaltender covering it in there is simply a whistle

Rule

NHL Rule 69.1 — a defender who pushes, shoves or fouls you into the goalie is not deemed contact initiated by you, provided you made a reasonable effort to avoid it; but pushing a defender into their own goalie is, and a goal scored off it is disallowed

Rule

NHL Rule 69.2 — intentional or deliberate contact with a goalie draws a penalty whether or not a goal is scored

Rule

USA Hockey 607(d) Note 1 splits contact with a goaltender by what you did — accidental or unavoidable is interference, a 625(a)(8) minor; any deliberate body contact or check is charging, never a bare minor: 607(c) is "a minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct", 607(e) a match

Rule

USA Hockey Casebook 607 Situation 4, a three-rung charging ladder: no penalty only where a defender pushed you in AND you "clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact"; minor plus misconduct for an honest attempt alone; major plus game misconduct or match if you accelerate through

Never

Drive the goaltender backwards in a scramble. Rule 69.7 permits incidental contact only, and shoving them into the net with the puck loses the goal you just scored

Action

Play the puck, not the goaltender, when you both arrive at a loose one — what the rule forgives is incidental contact in a race you are both making for the same puck

Three more provisions worth knowing, and the first is the one net-front players lean on hardest:

• Rebounds and loose pucks (69.7): in a rebound situation, or where you and the goalie are simultaneously going for a loose puck, incidental contact is permitted inside or outside the crease and the goal is allowed. The words are worth having: "In a rebound situation, or where a goalkeeper and attacking player(s) are simultaneously attempting to play a loose puck, whether inside or outside the crease, incidental contact with the goalkeeper will be permitted, and any goal that is scored as a result thereof will be allowed." This is the exception that lets net-front players do their job in a scramble — incidental contact, in a race you are both making for the same loose puck. ⚠️ That carve-out is NHL and IIHF only — neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes one, and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to 8.5(a) disallows the goal for any contact you initiate, "regardless of whether the contact occurs inside or outside of the goal crease."

  A third paragraph covers the version where the puck is underneath somebody. Where the puck is under a player in or around the crease area, "(deliberately or otherwise)", "a goal cannot be scored by pushing this player together with the puck into the goal", and "[i]f applicable, the appropriate penalties will be assessed, including a penalty shot if deemed to be covered in the crease deliberately." So digging at a covered puck is fair, and shovelling the pile into the net is not a goal. That penalty shot runs your way, but only in one case: Rule 63.6, which 69.7 points to, awards it where a defending player other than the goalkeeper falls on, holds, picks up or gathers the puck in the crease (NHL 67.4, which the IIHF prints at its own 67.4 as a pointer back to 63.6). A goaltender covering the puck in there is simply a whistle.

  🇬🇧 The IIHF prints all four limbs at the same number, in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions alike, differing in small things — capitalising Player, writing "goal crease" where the NHL writes "crease", putting quotation marks of its own around "incidental contact", dropping the "that" from "In the event that a goalkeeper", capitalising "Penalty Shot", and setting all four limbs off as separate paragraphs where the NHL prints three and keeps the relief inside the second. Both books also list the play among the goals that must be disallowed, at NHL 78.5(ix) and IIHF 78.5(IX) — but read those as cross-references rather than as the rule, because each is worded more loosely than 69.7 itself: both drop "by an attacking player" and write "after making a save" where 69.7 writes "after making a stop". Take the conditions from 69.7.

• Pushed into the goalie (69.1): if a defender pushes, shoves or fouls you into the goalie, that is not treated as contact initiated by you — provided you made a reasonable effort to avoid it. Conversely, if you push a defender into their own goalie, that counts as contact initiated by you and the goal is disallowed.

• Penalty (69.2): intentional or deliberate contact with a goalie draws a penalty whether or not a goal is scored.

The same play under the other three books

Rule

USA Hockey 625(b) flatly bars the goal with an attacker in the crease whoever scored, unless the puck got there first, the goalkeeper is out of the crease area, or a defender put them there — none of which licenses interference: a minor under 625(a)(8), and the goal off (Casebook Situation 9)

Rule

USA Hockey 625(b): with the puck in the attacking zone, their team in possession and the goalkeeper in contact with the crease, an attacker standing, holding their stick or skating through the crease is a neutral-zone faceoff; Casebook Situation 10 spares a momentary stick the whistle, not the goal

Rule

Hockey Canada 8.5 is not flat — where a teammate outside the crease scores, the goal stands "provided that the player who was in the goal crease does not attempt to play the puck, interfere with the play or obstruct the Goaltender's view or movements"

Rule

Hockey Canada has an impairment ground too, and it names vision — Interpretation 3 to 8.5(a) disallows the goal where a player standing in the crease impedes "the goaltender's vision or movements"; it answers to NHL 69.3, not to 69.1

Rule

Hockey Canada 8.5 puts the onus in the rule — attackers "who do not make an effort to avoid the goaltender must be penalized" — but keeps the questions apart: a referee may disallow a goal "without assessing an attacking player a penalty"

Rule

Hockey Canada's Interpretation 2 to 8.5(a) makes the penalty on an attacker fouled into the goaltender mandatory — "must be penalized" — where you make no effort to avoid the contact; USA Hockey asks the same effort in its Casebook, at Rule 607 Situation 4, not in its rules

Rule

Interpretation 2 also directs the referee to penalise the defender who fouled you; Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to 8.5(a) is no relief from that minor — it excepts the goal, and only for an attacker whom the foul left unable to avoid the contact

Rule

On a screen from outside the crease the books split — the IIHF prints the NHL's Rule 69, so a British reader is under it; USA Hockey writes no goaltender-vision provision in its rules or its Casebook, and Hockey Canada's two references reach only a player in the crease

Rule

Hockey Canada is not capped at a minor, nor is USA Hockey (607(c) and 607(e)) — 8.5(b) reaches a major plus game misconduct on degree of violence with nobody hurt, and mandatorily for charging the goaltender and for any such foul that injures; 8.5(c) is a match penalty, and 8.5(d) bars a misconduct

Rule

CARHA Rule 66(b) — CARHA-affiliated leagues only — is stricter still: no standing in the goal crease "unless the puck is in the goal crease area", the goal off if you do, and no incidental-contact allowance. Its push-in relief saves position only — contact impeding the goalkeeper is still a minor

Never

Plant your feet in the blue paint — a foot in there risks the goal under all four books, and the zone too under USA Hockey 625(b), a shall on three conditions, or IIHF 69.1, a referee's discretion

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7. Working the Half-Wall

The half-wall is the boards area level with the faceoff dot, between the corner and the point. It is the winger's home base in the offensive zone (see Winger) and the most common place from which offensive-zone possessions are organised.

It is a good place to hold the puck because you have the boards protecting one side, you can see the whole zone, and you are equidistant from four different plays.

The four options from the half-wall

Action

Know all four before the puck arrives, and know which one is on

Options

Low — to the corner or behind the net; the safe continuation that feeds the cycle and resets the defence's problem

Options

High — to the point; the low-to-high shot generator, best when the defence has collapsed and left the point unpressured

Options

Middle — the seam pass into the slot or the backdoor; highest value, highest risk, shortest window

Options

Yourself — drive the net or cut to the middle, best when your check is flat-footed or has turned their hips

Never

Arrive on the half-wall with only one option in mind — you will play it regardless of whether the slot was open

Know all four before the puck arrives, and know which is on:

1. Low — to the corner or behind the net. The safe continuation. Feeds the cycle, keeps possession, resets the defence's problem.
2. High — to the point. The low-to-high shot generator. Best when the defence has collapsed low and left the point unpressured.
3. Middle — the seam pass into the slot or the backdoor. The royal road pass. Highest value, highest risk, shortest window.
4. Yourself — drive the net or cut to the middle. Attack the inside off the wall. Best when your check is flat-footed, has turned their hips, or has over-committed to taking away a pass.

The failure is having only one of these in mind. A player who arrives on the half-wall intending to pass to the point will do that regardless of whether the slot was open.

Buying time

Technique

Cut back — skate a few feet toward the corner and cut back up the wall; the defender's momentum has to reverse, yours does not

Technique

Delay and curl — turn away from pressure, protect the puck and curl toward the middle into open ice, coming out facing the ice

Technique

Receive with your body between checker and puck, then spin off — turning into pressure immediately is how you get pinned

Never

Put your back to the boards, or duck. Skates parallel to the wall instead, forearm and hip to it — not the point of your shoulder. Head up, chin off your chest; this outranks everything else here

Options

Bump it to the level-support player and take an immediate return pass — it resets the defender's read entirely

Action

Feet moving, always — a stationary player on the wall gets pinned; one with momentum can go three directions

You often need two more seconds than you have. Ways to manufacture them:

• Cut back. Skate a few feet toward the corner and cut back up the wall. The defender's momentum has to be reversed; yours does not.
• Delay and curl. Turn away from the pressure, protect the puck, and curl toward the middle — into open ice, never with your back against the wall; the safety qualifier two bullets down governs this one too. Coming out of the curl you will be facing the ice with your options refreshed.
• Don't turn into pressure first. When you receive the puck under pressure, take it with your body between checker and puck, then spin off. Turning into pressure immediately is how you get pinned. Safety qualifier that outranks all of this: the orientation to aim for at the wall is skates parallel to the boards, forearm and hip to the wall, head up and chin off your chest — never your back to the boards, never duck, and never the point of your shoulder. Chest-square to the wall is the fallback, not the target. See Body Contact and Battles.
• Bump it and get it back. A short pass to the level-support player and an immediate return pass re-sets the defender's read entirely, and often you get the puck back in more space than you gave it away in.
• Feet moving, always. A stationary player on the wall gets pinned. A player with momentum can go three directions.

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8. Behind the Net as an Attacking Position

Behind the net is not where the puck goes to die. It is one of the best attacking positions on the ice, and most amateur teams treat it as a place you end up rather than a place you go on purpose.

Why it is so good

Key

From behind the goal line you look up at the whole zone with all five defenders and the goalie in front of you

Key

Nobody can come at you from directly behind, because the net and the end boards are there — that is geometry, not immunity

Risk

You can still be driven into the goal frame behind the net. Keep your head up and know who is arriving

Rule

Checking from behind is a major "anywhere on the playing surface" (NHL Rule 43.3), with no minor written for it (43.2) and a mandatory game misconduct (43.5); USA Hockey 608(b) puts a major plus game misconduct on one that sends an opponent head first into the goal frame

Read

Every time the puck crosses behind the net the goalie must pick a post and rotate — every rotation is a moment they are not square

Key

Passes from below the goal line finished at 6.73%, second only to royal road passes — volunteer-tracked Passing Project data, 51,308 shots at 5v5, all attempts

• You can see everything and nobody can see you the same way. From behind the goal line you are looking up at the whole zone with all five defenders and the goalie in front of you. You have the best view on the ice and the defence has to defend with their backs to their own net.
• Nobody can come at you from directly behind — there is nothing there but the net and the end boards, so a defender can only pressure you from one of two sides and you can see them coming. That is geometry, not immunity. Checking from behind is a major "anywhere on the playing surface" under NHL Rule 43.3 — 43.2 writes no minor for it at all, and 43.5 makes the game misconduct mandatory — and USA Hockey 608(b) puts a major plus a game misconduct on a check from behind that sends an opponent head first into the goal frame, which it names alongside the boards, precisely because players get driven into it back here. Keep your head up and know who is arriving.
• The goalie has to turn their head. Every time the puck crosses behind the net, the goalie must decide which post to seal and rotate to track you. Every rotation is a moment when they are not square to a shot.
• Passes out to the slot are exceptionally dangerous. Passes originating below the goal line finished at 6.73% — the second-most dangerous pass type measured, behind only royal road passes (Alan Wells' analysis of Ryan Stimson's Passing Project data, via NHL.com; volunteer-tracked, 51,308 shots at 5v5, counting all attempts rather than shots on goal).

What to do from there

Action

Pass out to the slot — the primary play, not the last resort; look for the high-slot forward or the backdoor player

Options

The wrap-around — carry round the post and stuff it far side before the goalie seals; best as a threat, because sealing hard opens the slot pass

Options

The walkout — come out into the slot yourself on your forehand, crossing the royal road with the puck

Options

The bank off the goalie — from a tight angle behind the goal line, off the back of their pads into the net; legal, and occasionally free

Options

Reverse or rim to restart the cycle if nothing is on — possession retained is a perfectly good outcome

Rule

The goalkeeper's restricted area restricts only the goaltender (geometry NHL Rule 1.8, penalty 27.8 / 63.2(viii)) — skaters may go anywhere behind the net at any time

Read

USA Hockey and Hockey Canada write no trapezoid at all, so under those books their goalie may retrieve a dumped puck anywhere behind the net — it changes the calculus of dumping it in

Rule

No trapezoid is not no restriction on their goalie — USA Hockey Rule 614(c) still makes it a minor to freeze the puck behind the goal line, and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause v, gives a minor with "No warning" for freezing it outside the crease

Rule

Both books write a clause for your dump-in exactly — Hockey Canada's clause iv for a goalie who comes out "to beat an attacking player to the puck" and jumps on it, no warning, and USA Hockey's Casebook Situation 6, which answers the identical facts a minor

Read

Those are retrieval clauses, not save clauses — a cover taken after stopping a shot is a different case in both books, where the exceptions run the other way; Goaltender sets them out

Read

In England and Wales the restricted area's status is unsettled (Rules & Regulations 22.3) — plan as though their goalie may retrieve a dumped puck

• Pass out to the slot. This is the primary play, not the last resort. Look for the high-slot forward or the backdoor player. Because the pass comes from below the goal line, it crosses the royal road and arrives at a player already inside the home-plate area — both levers at once: it moves the goalie and it puts the puck in a dangerous place.
• The wrap-around. Carry the puck around the post and try to stuff it in on the far side before the goalie can push across and seal. It works when the goalie has committed to the near post, and it is at its best as a threat: a goalie who fears the wrap seals hard to the post, which opens the pass to the slot.
• The walkout. Come out from behind the net into the slot yourself, on your forehand, with the puck. You cross the royal road carrying the puck and you arrive in the most dangerous area on the ice.
• The bank off the goalie. Legal, and occasionally free. From a tight angle behind the goal line you can bank the puck off the back of the goalie's pads into the net.
• Reverse or rim to restart the cycle. If nothing is on, feed it back out to the corner you came from or rim it to the far corner and rotate. Possession retained is a perfectly good outcome.

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9. Attacking Off the Rush vs Attacking Off a Set Possession

These are two different games and most amateur teams have only one of them.

Off the rush

Read

You enter with speed and attack before the defence is set — the chance comes from numbers and momentum

Key

Chances appear in the first three or four seconds and then vanish; speed and the moment of entry are the resource

Options

The late-arriving trailer into the high slot, the drive to the net that occupies a defender, and the delay — curling back to let a second wave arrive

Key

Shots off the rush are more dangerous than equivalent shots from a set possession, because the goalie is also moving and re-establishing depth

You enter the zone with speed and attack before the defence is set. The chance comes from numbers and momentum — a 2-on-1, a 3-on-2, a trailer arriving late into space.

• The defining resource is speed and the moment of entry. Chances appear in the first three or four seconds and then vanish.
• The high-value plays are the late-arriving trailer into the high slot, the drive to the net that occupies a defender, and the delay — curling back up toward the blue line to let a second wave arrive.
• Shots off the rush are more dangerous than equivalent shots from a set possession, because the goalie is also moving and re-establishing depth.
• Full treatment of getting into the zone in the first place is in Zone Entries.

Off a set possession

Read

The defence is established, everyone is back and nothing is open — the chance comes from movement and patience

Key

The defining resource is time on the puck and the willingness to hold it

Options

Cycle, low-to-high with a screen, seam pass, net-front chaos, behind-the-net feed

Read

Coverage lapses arrive after a long shift of defending — a defence that has been chasing for forty seconds is about to make a mistake

The defence is established, everyone is back, and nothing is open. The chance comes from movement and patience — cycling, rotating, forcing the defence to move until coverage breaks.

• The defining resource is time on the puck and the willingness to hold it.
• The high-value plays are the ones in sections 4 to 8: cycle, low-to-high with a screen, seam pass, net-front chaos, behind-the-net feed.
• Coverage lapses tend to arrive after a long shift of defending — a defence that has been chasing for forty seconds is a defence about to make a mistake.

Why having only one is a problem

Risk

A rush-only team has nothing once the rush is denied at the blue line — they enter, lose it, and go back the other way

Risk

A cycle-only team never threatens quickly, so the defence gets set every time and the cycle only ever produces perimeter shots

Action

Have a plan for the second wave — a chip past the defenceman, a soft area dump, or a controlled retreat and re-attack

Action

When a cycle produces a neutral-zone turnover, somebody must be anticipating and going the other way with speed

• A rush-only team dies against any structured defensive team, because when the rush is denied at the blue line they have nothing. They enter, lose the puck, and go back the other way. Their offensive-zone time is measured in seconds.
• A cycle-only team is easy to defend because it never threatens quickly. The defence gets set every single time, and the cycle only ever produces perimeter shots.

How to have both: the practical test is what your team does on the second wave. When the rush is stopped at the blue line, do you have a plan to establish possession — a chip past the defenceman, a soft area dump, a controlled retreat and re-attack? And when a cycle produces a turnover in the neutral zone, is anyone anticipating and going the other way with speed? See Risk Management and Scanning and Anticipation.

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10. Regaining Possession After a Shot

Treat the seconds immediately after a shot as the most dangerous moment in a possession — and this one is measured. The NHL's public play-by-play feed timestamps every shot and every goal, so the hazard can be read straight off it. Across games 2024020001–2024020400 of the 2024-25 regular season (api-web.nhle.com/v1/gamecenter/{id}/play-by-play), a team that put a shot on goal scored again within the next three seconds 1.37% of the time, against roughly 0.26% for a three-second window picked at random — about five times the base rate. Put the other way round: 11.4% of all goals came within three seconds of a preceding shot on goal by the same team, and 19.7% within ten. These are figures derived from the raw feed rather than published statistics, but the direction is not in doubt, and it agrees with the rebound-recovery figure quoted earlier in this document and with the shot-location values Shooting covers. The goalie has committed, is often down, and is out of position. The puck is loose in the most dangerous area on the ice. Every defender has just been pulled toward the shot.

This is also the moment most amateur teams stop playing — the shot goes in, everyone watches, and the defence walks out with it.

F3's job

Convention

With three forwards rotating and both defencemen holding the blue line — the default shape this section describes — F3 is the high forward; a coaching choice, not a law

Position

Be the safety — at or near the top of the circle, so a rebound straight out is yours and a counter-attack has to go through you

Action

Cover the vacated point if a defenceman activates — F3 takes the blue line in the house-default shape, which wants two on the line

Options

Under a five-man rotation whichever player is highest covers; a third variant slides the weak-side defenceman across to the middle instead

Read

If the rebound squirts to the high slot, jump — you are the closest player with forward momentum

Position

The other two forwards go to the net — one to the front for the screen and tip, one hunting the strong-side rebound

In the house-default structure, F3 is the high forward and their responsibilities on a shot are, in order:

1. Be the safety. Sit at or near the top of the circle so a rebound that comes straight out is yours, and so a counter-attack has to go through you.
2. Cover the vacated point if a defenceman activates. If the strong-side defenceman pinches or dives to the middle, F3 takes the blue line — in the house-default five-man shape described earlier, which wants two players on the line at all times. This is a coaching choice, and a common alternative is the five-man rotation, where nobody has a fixed line job and whichever player is highest at that moment covers, defenceman or forward. A third variant simply accepts one player on the line while the D is down and asks the weak-side defenceman to slide across to the middle instead. Find out which your team plays — the five-man shape described earlier in this document is a default, not a law.
3. Read the rebound and jump. If the puck squirts to the high slot, you are the closest player with forward momentum. That is a high-danger chance handed to you.

The other two forwards go to the net: one to the front for the screen and tip, one hunting the strong-side rebound.

The defenceman's pinch

Diagram from risk management

Read

"If you can't arrive on contact, don't go" — and clearly first on an uncontested race. Pinch when the winger is flat-footed or facing the glass or on a loose puck or tired line

Never

Pinch when your forwards are already below you, when the opponent has turned up ice with speed, when protecting a narrow lead late, or when your partner has not seen you go

Technique

Stick in the passing lane before your feet commit. Angle the winger into the boards rather than the middle, close with short explosive steps; where your book allows it seal the wall — never their body

Priority

Take the puck, or — where your league permits body checking — take the player; achieve neither and you have created an odd-man rush against your own team. A winger facing the glass is not that player

Rule

A player facing the glass is defenceless — NHL 41.1 puts the onus on you to avoid or minimise contact, and driving into their back is a major with no minor option (NHL and IIHF 43.2). USA Hockey 640(e) bars checking a player physically engaged for the puck with another — a minor, up to a match

Rule

Seal with body position — never with an arm, never with a skate; USA Hockey 622 Note makes an arm wrapped around an opponent, pinning them against the boards so they cannot play the puck or skate, a 622(a) holding minor, and a skate "push off" is 627(a), a major plus a game misconduct

Rule

Building speed into the contact is charging and the books do not count it alike — Hockey Canada 7.4 two or more strides, USA Hockey 607 more than two, IIHF 42.1 "multiple", the NHL no count at all — and no limb of USA Hockey's 607 writes a bare minor

Rule

Body checking is banned at USA Hockey 12U and below, in all girls'/women's and non-check adult classifications (604(a)), and at Hockey Canada U13 and below, in female hockey and any Member-approved division (7.3) — and both are floors: a local governing body may bar it in any classification

Rule

The IIHF book and the In-House Rules set no body-checking age — ask your league. IIHF 101.1 allows a women's-hockey bodycheck with clear intention of playing or gaining possession of the puck, subject to the exception it sets out; the boards may not be used to eliminate, push or pin an opponent

Rule

Checking a player who no longer has the puck is a minor under NHL 56.2(iii), not capped there — IIHF 56.5 and Hockey Canada 8.3(b) reach a major plus game misconduct with nobody hurt; USA Hockey 640(b) catches every avoidable one, and though its minor excepts adult men, 640 Note 2 reaches them

Convention

How aggressively defencemen pinch is a coaching choice — some green-light both, some only the strong side, some forbid going below the circles; ask

A pinch is stepping down from the offensive blue line to keep the puck in the zone or to win a puck on the wall. Do not confuse it with a step-up, which is challenging an attacker in the neutral zone or at your own line — different play, different zone. ⚠️ And before the criteria: USA Hockey's late-hit window is the narrowest of the four. Rule 640(b) makes a minor of every avoidable check on a player who has released a shot or pass — the rule says they "are not eligible to be body checked", and the Declaration of Player Safety calls "finishing the check" an "unacceptable action". That named minor is written "except Adult Male Classifications", and adult men should not read that as a free hit: 640 Note 2 directs a roughing penalty for "an avoidable body check to an opponent … who is no longer in control of the puck" with no classification exception. Its separate Casebook gives a rule of thumb under which a check may be finished, and it wants all four of these: you first made an effort to gain possession of the puck, you were within "an arm's length plus stick length" when the puck was dumped, the check was already "in the process of being delivered when control of the puck was relinquished", and you minimise the force used (Standard of Play, Situation 10). Lateness is an express test there — "It is not acceptable to skate one or two more strides after the puck is gone and then decide to deliver the check" — so everything below is about whether to go at all, not about how late you may arrive.

The decision criteria, which are consistent across coaching sources:

Pinch when:

• You can arrive on contact — you and the puck get there at the same time. "If you can't arrive on contact, don't go." That is the test when an opposing player is arriving too: getting there level lets you play the puck or, where your book allows contact at all, seal the wall rather than the winger, and arriving a beat late is the failure, because once the puck is gone you may not hit the man (Rule 56.2, below). On an uncontested race for a loose puck or a rim, the bar is higher — you need to arrive clearly first, since there is nobody to seal and second place just means your back is to the play. Forechecking Systems applies the same two-part test.
• The opposing winger is flat-footed or facing the glass, not already turned up ice with speed.
• A forward is able to rotate high and cover your line.
• It is a loose puck, a bobble or a tired line — the best windows.

Do not pinch when:

• Your forwards are already below you and nobody can cover the line;
• The opponent has already turned up ice with speed and their head up;
• You are protecting a narrow lead late (see Game Management);
• Your partner has not seen you go.

Technique: stick in the passing lane before your feet commit. Angle the winger into the boards rather than toward the middle, and close with short explosive steps, getting your feet under you for the last two or three strides rather than accelerating into the arrival. Where your book allows contact, seal the wall — never the winger's body, and never the boards used to eliminate, push or pin them.

The governing principle is take the puck, or — where your league permits body checking — take the player; achieve neither and you have created an odd-man rush against your own team.

If the pinch fails: retreat toward the slot, not along the boards. Skating back down the wall follows the puck and abandons the middle; cutting to the slot re-establishes your gap and delays the attack until support arrives.

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11. When to Shoot and When Not To

Shoot when

Read

Inside the home-plate area with any kind of look — almost any shot from there beats almost any pass from there

Read

The goalie is unset, moving or screened

Read

You have a lane — a genuine one, not the memory of one

Read

There is someone at the net front — a tip threat and a rebound hunter make it a different play

Read

A rebound is available and the goalie is down — shoot immediately, do not settle it

• You are inside the home-plate area with any kind of look. Almost any shot from there beats almost any pass from there.
• The goalie is unset, moving, or screened.
• You have a lane — a genuine one, not the memory of one.
• There is someone at the net front. A shot with a tip threat and a rebound hunter is a different play from the same shot with nobody there.
• A rebound is available and the goalie is down. Shoot immediately. Do not settle it.

Do not shoot when

Never

Fire into a shin pad from the point with the lane blocked — a blocked point shot usually goes the other way with your team spread out

Never

Shoot when a better shot is one pass away — specifically, a pass across the royal road

Never

Shoot with nobody at the net front — you are giving the puck to the goalie and starting their breakout

Never

Shoot from a sharp angle with no traffic — goalies seal the post, and there is nothing to hit and no rebound to chase

Never

Treat the cross-slot finishing rate and the point-shot conversion rate as a before-and-after pair — different studies, measuring different things

Priority

Act on the direction — a shot after the goalie has had to move across is worth materially more, so the half-second is usually worth it

• The lane is blocked and you are firing into a shin pad from the point. A blocked point shot is worse than no shot: it usually goes the other way, and your team is spread out.
• A better shot is one pass away — specifically, a pass across the royal road. Do not put the two numbers side by side, though, however tempting it is: the 15.50% is a finishing rate on shots following a cross-slot pass, measured at 5-on-5 in the Passing Project, while the 3% is a different number depending on which one you mean, and neither is a measurement of the same shot with and without the crossing. Read as Boyle's distant shot from above the circles with no lateral movement, it comes from Valiquette's unpublished tracking, which Section 2 flags as attributed-but-uncheckable. Read as this document's point-shot-with-traffic rate in Section 1, it is Greg Revak's, credited by him to a shot-location map that has no traffic variable together with an unnamed dataset — uncheckable for a different reason, as Section 1 sets out. They are different studies measuring different things, and Section 2 explains at length why treating them as a before-and-after pair overstates what was measured — on the Boyle reading, most of that gap is shot distance rather than the crossing. The direction is what you should act on: a shot taken after the goalie has had to move across is worth materially more than the same-ish shot taken before, so the half-second is usually worth it.
• Nobody is at the net front. You are giving the puck to the goalie and starting their breakout.
• You are on a sharp angle with no traffic. Goalies seal the post; there is nothing to hit and no rebound to chase.

What to shoot for

Mindset

From the perimeter you are not trying to score — you are trying to manufacture a second chance

Technique

Shoot for a rebound — low, to the far pad, or off the pads; chest and glove get swallowed and the whistle goes

Technique

Shoot for a tip — low, hard, along the ice, through the screen, at the tipper's stick, and say who you are shooting at

Options

Shoot to be missed — a hard shot off the end boards to a spot for a teammate is a legitimate pass; say it first

Never

Pick corners against a set, sighted goalie — the lowest-percentage thing you can do with a puck. Aim for a corner instead only when they cannot see it or cannot get there

This is the part most players never think about. From the perimeter, you are not trying to score. You are trying to manufacture a second chance.

• Shoot for a rebound. Pucks aimed low, to the far pad, or off the pads generally produce controllable rebounds. Pucks aimed at the goalie's chest and glove do not — they get swallowed and the whistle goes.
• Shoot for a tip. Low, hard, along the ice, through the screen, at the tipper's stick. Say who you are shooting at. The tipper's job is to present a blade; yours is to hit it.
• Shoot to be missed. A shot deliberately aimed to miss wide can be a play — a hard shot off the end boards to a specific spot for a teammate is a legitimate pass. Say it first.
• Aim for a corner only when the goalie cannot see it or cannot get there. Picking corners against a set, sighted goalie is the lowest-percentage thing you can do with a puck.

Getting pucks through from the point

Diagram from shooting

Key

Your job is not to shoot harder, it is to shoot through — point shots are blocked more than shots from anywhere else on the ice

Technique

Walk the line first — skate sideways along the blue line toward the middle until the shot-blocker has to move their feet, then release from the new angle

Technique

Change the release point — a quick snap from a different spot beats a blocker who has already dropped

Technique

Take something off it — a slower, lower shot that gets through and gets tipped beats a 95 mph slapshot into a shin pad

Options

Fake the shot — a blocker on the ice opens the lane for the real one, and often opens the seam pass instead

Options

Take the D-to-D first — it drags both the blocker and the goalie, and you shoot into a lane just vacated

Point shots are blocked more than shots from anywhere else on the ice. If you are a defenceman, your job is not to shoot harder — it is to shoot through:

• Walk the line first. Skating sideways along the blue line toward the middle changes the angle and moves the shot-blocker's feet. A defenceman who receives and fires from the same spot is shooting at a stationary wall. How far is feel rather than a measurement — go until the blocker has to move, which is usually a step or two.
• Change the release point. A quick snap shot from a different spot than the one they set up for beats a blocker who has already dropped.
• Take something off it. A deliberately slower, lower shot that gets through and gets tipped beats a 95 mph slapshot into a shin pad, every time.
• Fake the shot. A shot fake that puts a blocker on the ice opens the lane for the real one, and often opens the seam pass instead.
• Take the D-to-D first. Moving it across the top drags both the blocker and the goalie, and you shoot into a lane that has just been vacated.

More detail on mechanics is in Shooting.

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12. Offensive-Zone Faceoffs

An offensive-zone faceoff is the only moment in the game where you get to arrange all five players exactly where you want them, with the puck about to arrive at a known place. It is the closest hockey gets to a free kick, and most amateur teams waste it entirely.

Full treatment of the draw itself — technique, stick placement, the violations that get your centre ejected — is in Faceoffs. What matters here is what happens in the second after the draw.

Set plays off a win

Key

The point of a set play is that four players start moving on the drop, before anyone knows who won it

Options

Win back to the point and screen immediately — inside winger straight to the net front, outside winger to the strong-side rebound spot

Options

Win back to a winger set up for a one-timer — they must be aligned as a shooter before the drop, not as a defender

Options

Win it forward — attack directly; high reward, but it puts your centre below the puck and fails badly if the draw is lost

Options

Tie up the opposing centre's stick and let a winger sweep in for the loose puck — useful when their centre is dominant on draws

Options

Delay for the screen — the defenceman skates laterally for a beat first; a shot half a second late with a screen beats one on time without

Risk

A winger creeping into the circle before the drop is encroachment, and it gets your centre thrown out of the draw

Never

Reach the whistle without everyone knowing the play — the common failures are a net-front player arriving after the shot and a shot into the first shin pad

The point of a set play is that four players start moving on the drop, before anyone knows who won it. Common families:

• Win back to the point, screen immediately. The centre draws the puck back to the strong-side defenceman; the inside winger goes straight to the net front to screen; the outside winger takes the strong-side rebound position. Simplest, most reliable, and it converts because everyone was already moving.
• Win back to the winger for a one-timer. The centre draws it back to a winger set up in the shooting position (usually a left shot on the right circle, or vice versa) who shoots first-time. Requires the winger to be aligned as a shooter before the drop, not as a defender.
• Win it forward / "quick strike." The centre draws the puck forward or to the inside and attacks directly. High reward if the opposing centre is slow to react, but it puts your centre below the puck and it fails badly if the draw is lost.
• Tie up and let a winger take it. The centre does not try to win the puck cleanly but locks up the opposing centre's stick, and a winger sweeps in for the loose puck. Useful when the opposing centre is dominant on draws. Watch the encroachment rule — a winger creeping into the circle before the drop gets your centre thrown out of the draw.
• Delay for the screen. The defenceman receives the win but skates laterally for a beat before shooting, giving the net-front player time to establish. A shot half a second late with a screen beats a shot on time without one.

Whatever your team runs, everyone must know it before the whistle, and the two most common failures are a net-front player who arrives after the shot and a defenceman who fires it into the first shin pad.

Structure off a loss

Mindset

Assume you will lose roughly half the draws — structuring for the loss is the other half of the plan, not defeatism

Action

One forward pressures immediately, usually the winger nearest the puck, to deny the clean breakout pass and force a rim or a chip

Action

The other two forwards turn and skate rather than watch — a forward who is stationary when the puck is lost is beaten

Read

The defencemen hold the line and read — is this a rim to be intercepted, or a clean exit to be retreated against?

Convention

The strong-side defenceman is the one most likely to pinch on a rim; the weak-side one covers the middle

Key

Having a defined assignment for the loss is what lets you be aggressive on the win

Assume you will lose roughly half the draws. Structure for the loss is not defeatism, it is the other half of the plan.

• One forward pressures immediately — usually the winger nearest the puck — to deny the clean breakout pass and force a rim or a chip.
• The other two forwards get defensive momentum going, turning and skating rather than watching. A forward who is stationary when the puck is lost is beaten.
• The defencemen hold the line and read: is this a rim to be intercepted, or a clean exit to be retreated against? The strong-side defenceman is the one most likely to pinch on a rim; the weak-side one covers the middle.
• Nobody is a spectator. The most common goal against off an offensive-zone draw is not a great play by the other team; it is four players still processing the fact that they lost the puck.

The general principle is worth stating plainly: having a defined assignment for the loss is what lets you be aggressive on the win. Teams play tentatively on offensive-zone draws precisely because they have no plan for losing them.

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Common Mistakes

• Treating "get pucks to the net" as a strategy. At even strength, volume from the perimeter returns under 5% goals per unblocked shot — a rate counting misses as well as saves, so it is not shooting percentage — and about 1% or less from the point without traffic (that point-shot figure is Greg Revak's, and it is uncheckable — see section 1; Shooting covers shot-location value). On the power play the same source puts the whole zone at or above 5% — a contour read off a small image, so approximate in where the line falls but not in its direction — so this is an even-strength caution and not an argument against a power-play point shot. Shot volume without shot quality is busywork.
• Cycling with nobody in front of the net. Very commonly the failure behind a possession that looks busy and produces nothing — a coaching observation rather than a count, because nobody has published a tally of offensive-zone failures by cause. A cycle that never produces a net-front presence or a shot from the home-plate area has accomplished nothing except tiring out your own line.
• Scanning up the wall before scanning across the middle. By the time you have looked at the safe option, the seam has closed. Look across first, every time — of the two options, only the seam expires.
• Passing to a teammate's current position instead of where they are going. In the slot, the extra touch is the difference between a goal and a save.
• Standing still on the half-wall. A stationary player against the boards gets pinned and stripped. Cutbacks and curls are what buy the two extra seconds you need. And when the contact arrives, never your back to the boards, never duck, and never the point of your shoulder. Get your skates parallel to the boards instead, forearm and hip to the wall, head up and chin off your chest.
• Watching your own shot from the net front. Turning to follow the flight un-screens the goalie and takes you out of the rebound. Look at the puck, then get your eyes back down.
• Planting at the net front without knowing where the post is. The job asks you to stand still with your eyes off the man beside you, so you get walked sideways by a body you are feeling rather than watching, with the goal post at one edge of that path and your opponent's goaltender at the other. Head up, chin off your chest, and never duck — the flexed neck is what turns a collision with a post into a spinal injury, and USA Hockey names the goal post in that mechanism alongside the boards. A legal box-out puts you on the same path, so this is not a checking-league point.
• Standing in the blue paint to screen. Legal screening happens outside the crease, under every book — but check which reason is yours. NHL Rule 69.3 voids the goal where an attacker establishes a significant position inside the crease that obstructs the goalie's vision and impairs their ability to defend, with no contact at all — and it defines significant as a substantial part of your body in there for "more than an instantaneous period of time", so both limbs and the duration have to be met. ⚠️ Do not take that as room to work in: the IIHF's own Situation Handbook applies none of it, answering a player "in the crease screening the goalkeeper" with a flat "The goal shall be disallowed" (Situation 69.1) — guidance that ranks below the rulebook, but guidance an official may be working from. Hockey Canada's Interpretation 3 to 8.5(a) reaches the same result where a player standing in the crease impedes "the goaltender's vision or movements". USA Hockey 625(b) needs no impairment to judge: your position in the crease is enough on its own — unless the puck preceded you into the crease, the goalkeeper is out of the crease area, or a defending player's interference is what put you there, in which case the goal stands. The middle one runs out the moment you are what stops the goalie getting back: Casebook Rule 625, Situation 9 disallows the goal and adds an interference minor where the goalkeeper was "attempting to return to the goal crease" and the attacker prevented them from making a play. ⚠️ And under Hockey Canada the price of arriving into the goalie is not two minutes: 8.5(b) reaches a major plus game misconduct at the referee's discretion "based on the degree of violence of impact" with nobody hurt, and makes it mandatory for charging the goaltender and mandatory for any interference-with-goaltender foul that injures an opponent; 8.5(c) reaches a match penalty. ⚠️ Nor is it two minutes under USA Hockey, which routes the deliberate half of this to charging: 607(d) Note 1 sends "[a]ny deliberate body contact or check that is delivered to the goalkeeper" there, 607(c) makes that "[a] minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty" where the goalkeeper is "within the goal crease or privileged area" — an area 607(d) Note 2 runs from the end-zone face-off spots back to the end boards — and 607(e) reaches a match penalty. Its Casebook turns the whole thing on one thing, in both directions. USA Hockey's Casebook, Rule 607, Situation 4: forced into the goalkeeper by a defender, "no penalty should be assessed provided the attacking player has clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact with the goalkeeper" — but "if the player makes no attempt to avoid the goalkeeper and recklessly endangers the goalkeeper by accelerating through the contact, or by extending the arms or dropping the shoulder to deliver the hit, the major plus game misconduct, or match penalty option would be the proper call." Make the effort to avoid, visibly, every time — but do not read it as a complete defence. ⚠️ The same Situation puts a player "going hard to the goal" who makes "an honest attempt to avoid the goalkeeper once it is realized contact is unavoidable" at a minor plus misconduct, and the no-penalty rung needs a defender's foul behind you as well as your effort.
• Holding your position when the goalkeeper leans into you to establish theirs. Under NHL and IIHF Rule 69.3, once a goalkeeper attempting to establish position in the crease has made contact with you, you must "immediately vacate" — "give ground to the goalkeeper" — or a goal scored on the play is disallowed. The rule adds a penalty "whether or not a goal is scored", though both books' own reference tables assess none in the goal-scored case (Situation 6 D in the NHL's Table 14 and in the IIHF's Appendix IV: "loss of goal only") and put the minor in the no-goal case instead. Neither reading pays you for standing there. Give ground, then re-establish the screen outside the paint.
• Treating the rebound carve-out as a licence to move the goaltender. NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7 do permit incidental contact inside or outside the crease in a rebound or a loose-puck race you are both making, and allow the goal — but the paragraph after that disallows one "[i]n the event that a goalkeeper has been pushed into the net together with the puck by an attacking player after making a stop", and adds "appropriate penalties" if applicable. ⚠️ All three of those conditions have to be met, so this is not a rule against every contact that moves a goaltender. ⚠️ And carry the relief with the limit: where the referee judges that a defending player pushed or fouled you into causing that push, "the goal can be permitted" — read the verb: permitted, on the referee's opinion, not allowed as of right, and 69.7 attaches no effort condition to it. The "reasonable effort to avoid such contact" test is 69.1's, on the separate question of whether a defender's shove makes the contact yours — which is the question the reference tables decide, and they decide it on the effort. Neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes the carve-out at all.
• Tipping with a high stick — and assuming the ceiling is the crossbar wherever you play. A puck contacting your stick above the height of the crossbar is not a goal under NHL and IIHF Rule 80.3 and Hockey Canada 6.9(b), all three of which make where the puck meets the stick the test. ⚠️ USA Hockey does neither. Rule 621(d) sets the ceiling at the shoulder and prints no crossbar test at all, and its Casebook at Rule 621, Situation 7 rejects the contact point in terms — "When any part of the stick is carried above the shoulders, the entire stick is considered to be high" — so a blade held high loses the goal even when the puck struck the shaft low. A tip between your shoulders and the crossbar is a goal in three books and no goal in the fourth. ⚠️ The whistle is closer between the books than their printed rules look. The NHL, the IIHF and Hockey Canada stop play only once your own team gains possession of the high-batted puck (NHL and IIHF 80.1, Hockey Canada 6.9(a)). USA Hockey 621(d) prints an immediate stoppage unless an opponent gains possession — but its Casebook applies the same offending-team-possession test. Rule 621, Situation 15 permits the play to continue and states that "an offending team player must be the first to gain possession of the puck", and that "[a] deflection off of a player from either team would not cause the play to be completed." So do not quit on your own tip under any of the four. ⚠️ And all of that is about the puck — the moment the blade reaches a person it is Rule 60, or USA Hockey 621(a), 621(b) and 621(c), or Hockey Canada 9.5, or Rule 7.6 Head Contact in its minor and female divisions via 6.9(c). None of those is capped at a minor, and CARHA 62(b) — CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only — has no minor rung above the shoulders at all, being a major whether or not it injures, with a game misconduct added by its Note where the contact was intentional or where an accidental one injures; its minor, 62(a), is a different offence and not a lower rung, needing no contact at all. A puck nobody claims is stopped in all four as well — USA Hockey by Casebook Situations 8, 10 and 12, the NHL and IIHF by Rule 72.3 and Hockey Canada by its Interpretation 2 to 6.9(a)(i) — and what actually differs there is the face-off, which USA Hockey alone sends to the offending team's defending zone. A tip that goes straight in does end the play at once: the Casebook makes a high-sticked puck entering the goal "an immediate stoppage of play", and under 621(d) it is no goal anyway. Keep the blade on the ice, which is where most tippable pucks are anyway.
• Two defencemen leaving the blue line at once, when nobody called for it. Or one leaving and no forward filling in. Defending the Rush lists this among the five ways a team manufactures an odd-man rush against itself, and calls it the subtlest, because nothing looks wrong until the puck turns over and there is nobody above it. Both going is not always the error: teams running a five-man rotation, or giving both defencemen a standing green light, break the default on purpose and cover the line with whichever player is highest, and a full-ice press, a delayed penalty and a 6-on-5 are called from the bench rather than decided individually. Unless one of those is on, assume the default and look for your partner before you go.
• Pinching without arriving on contact. Take the puck, or — where your league permits body checking — take the player. Half-hearted pinches create 3-on-2s going the other way. And arriving a beat late is not capped at a minor: USA Hockey's window is the narrowest of the four — 640(b) makes a minor of every avoidable check on a player who has released a shot or pass, and its Casebook allows one to be finished only where you first made an effort to gain possession, were an arm's length plus stick length away when the puck was dumped, had the check already in the process of being delivered, and "minimize the force used in this instance and not take advantage of a vulnerable or defenseless opponent" — with "one or two more strides after the puck is gone" ruled out in terms (Standard of Play, Situation 10). ⚠️ Four conditions is how this guide reads the passage; it numbers none of them, and the last of the four is a separate sentence carrying two obligations at once. ⚠️ And that last condition is the one a pinch trips over, because the same book bars this check by a numbered rule. Rule 640(e) assesses a minor to any player who "delivers a body check to an opponent who is physically engaged for possession of the puck with one or more other players", and its Note adds that players so engaged "are considered vulnerable or defenseless and are not eligible to be body checked." ⚠️ Read what it does not restrict. It names no location, so a net-front battle is inside it exactly as a wall battle is; and unlike 640(b) it is not written "(except Adult Male Classifications)", so it is not division-scoped the way the late-hit minor is. Nor is it capped at a minor: the Casebook's Summary of Penalties lists 640(e,g) under Minor or Major (plus Game Misconduct Penalty) and 640(h) under Match Penalty Option, and Rule 640, Situation 6 — a skater who is not in the battle checking one who is — answers "[a] penalty for Roughing" and adds that a minor, a major plus game misconduct or a match "shall be assessed in every instance." ⚠️ The rule and its Note are the same test written from two ends: an opponent engaged "with one or more other players" is two or more players engaged. ⚠️ The Casebook is where a difference appears: Situation 6 closes on an opponent engaged "with two or more players", which read literally would need a third — so go by the rule text, which is the printed rule. USA Hockey says it again in prose in its Declaration of Player Safety, Fair Play & Respect, under Body Checking — "[w]hen two or more players are physically engaged for control of the puck along the boards, they are considered to be vulnerable or defenseless", and a check on a player already engaged with another skater "is considered dangerous, careless or reckless (unacceptable) and must be penalized accordingly" — ⚠️ but that passage is the one that stops at the boards, and the numbered rule does not. So pinching in onto your own teammate's battle is not a question of timing at all. Arrive beside them, seal the wall rather than their body, keep your arms, your stick and your skates out of it, and if you have ended up behind them, play the puck. ⚠️ The skates are in that list for a rule reason of their own: USA Hockey 627 defines a "push-off" as skate contact "in a non-kicking motion" (Note 2) and 627(a) prices it at a major plus a game misconduct, with no kicking motion required and no classification limb on the rule — and under Rule 404(b) that game misconduct takes your team's next game as well as this one. It is 640(b), the late-hit minor, that is written "except Adult Male Classifications" — not 640(e), which carries no such limb — and even 640(b) is not a free hit there: 640 Note 2 directs a roughing penalty for "an avoidable body check to an opponent … who is no longer in control of the puck" with no classification exception. And the tier above it is in Rule 640 too: 640(g) is a major plus a game misconduct where an action under (b, c, d, e or f) "recklessly endangers an opponent" and 640(h) a match — both reaching a late hit only through (b), so whether they reach adult men's hockey the book does not say, while the battle rule above reaches them through (e), which carries no such limit — while 602(a)'s match penalty for a player who "recklessly endangers or attempts to injure any opposing player" is tied to no named foul at all.
• Accelerating into the arrival. Get the speed on the way in and your feet under you for the last two or three strides. Building speed into the contact is the printed definition of charging in three of the four books, counted differently in each: Hockey Canada 7.4 says "two or more strides immediately prior to making contact", USA Hockey 607's Note "more than two strides", the IIHF's 42.1 "multiple strides" with no number, and the NHL's 42.1 sets no count and judges "distance traveled" instead. ⚠️ So the two strides that feel like closing the gap are already the offence under one of them — and under USA Hockey it is never two minutes and nothing else, because no limb of Rule 607 writes a bare minor: 607(a) is "[a] minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty" and 607(e) reaches a match penalty.
• Pinching to hit a winger who is facing the glass. They cannot see you and cannot protect themselves, and the onus is on you to avoid or minimise the contact. Take the puck — and no book lets this one cost you two minutes and nothing else: driving into a defenceless player's back is checking from behind, and under the NHL and the IIHF there is no minor option at all — IIHF 43.2 says "there is no option to award a minor penalty" and 43.3 is a major plus an automatic game misconduct. Hockey Canada 7.5(a) and USA Hockey 608(a) do write a minor, but never a bare one: 7.5(a) is a minor and a game misconduct, 608(a) a minor plus a misconduct. ⚠️ And under the NHL and the IIHF a second rule reaches this pinch from the other side, on the line you took rather than on how late you were. Once the winger has chipped the puck past you they are the non-puck carrier, and 56.1 rules out "Moving laterally and without establishing body position, then making contact with the non-puck carrier" — "not permitted and will be penalized as interference", whatever the timing. USA Hockey numbers it at 625(a)(4), a minor for a defender who "changes their skating lane or foot speed in an effort to play the body of an opponent who is no longer in control of the puck." ⚠️ Hockey Canada writes no lateral clause into interference at all — it puts leaving your skating lane inside its definition of body-checking (Rule 7.3), so at U13 and below, throughout female hockey and in any Member-approved division that same contact is a body-check minor instead. Establish the position and arrive into it. ⚠️ And before any of that, check that you may hit at all. Body checking is banned at USA Hockey 12U and below and in every girls'/women's and non-check adult classification (Rule 604(a)), and at Hockey Canada U13 and below, throughout female hockey and in any Member-approved division (Rule 7.3) — and those lists are floors, not ceilings, because 604(a) lets a local governing body bar it in any classification and 604(b) bars it whenever a Competitive Contact team meets a Body Checking team. Britain publishes no age, so ask your league; British women's hockey runs on IIHF Rule 101.1, where a hit needs a clear intention of playing the puck or an attempt to gain possession of it, subject to the exception the rule itself then sets out, and the boards may not be used to eliminate, push or pin an opponent. Where checking is not permitted, all of this is angling, body position and playing the puck.
• Retreating along the boards after a failed pinch. Cut to the slot instead. Following the puck down the wall abandons the middle of the ice.
• Quitting after the shot. The three seconds after a shot are the most dangerous moment of your entire possession. Most teams spend them watching.
• Having exactly one way to attack. Rush-only teams are shut down by any structured defence; cycle-only teams never threaten before the defence is set.
• Not knowing your team's rules for defenceman activation. Whether your defencemen pinch, and how deep they may go, is a coaching decision that varies enormously. Ask before your first shift.

Check yourself

Answer each question before you go on — a real attempt, not a guess. Then go and check, because the checking is the part that does the work. Producing an answer and getting it wrong is worth more than recognising a right one, but only when the right answer follows: the section named with each question, and the Key Takeaways after them, are where you get it. Where the answer lives in another document, that is named too.

1. Why is a pass across the middle of the ice worth more than the shot you already had? Answer it in terms of what the goalie has to do next — then say what this document will and will not let you claim about the numbers behind it. (§The Royal Road, §Why it beats everything else)

2. The puck arrives on your stick on the half-wall. Name your four options. Then say which way your eyes go first, which way the habit pulls you instead, and what that costs. (§The four options from the half-wall, §How to actually create one)

3. Your line cycles the puck four times, looks organised and busy, and never shoots. Why is the defence perfectly happy? Name the four things a cycle has to end in — and give the one condition that makes a point shot worth taking rather than a giveaway with extra steps. (§The failure: cycling for its own sake, §Low-to-High)

4. You are the net-front player. Say where your feet go and where they must not, what a screen is a line between, and what you must not do at the moment the shot is released. Then say what changes if you are playing under USA Hockey or IIHF rules. (§Screening, §Goaltender interference — the actual standard, §The same play under the other three books)

5. You get a blade on a point shot and it goes in, and the goal is waved off. What was the official measuring, and where should the blade have been? (§Tips and deflections)

6. You are pinching down the wall and the opposing winger is facing the glass with the puck. What does that posture tell you, what does it emphatically not give you permission to do, and what does getting it wrong cost — the answer is never a bare minor, and under two of the four books not a minor at all. (§The defenceman's pinch)

7. The shot is away. What are the next three seconds worth, what do most teams do with them, and what are the three things the high forward owes the play? (§10. Regaining Possession After a Shot, §F3's job)

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Key Takeaways

1. You are not trying to shoot — you are trying to shoot from a dangerous place with the goalie out of position. Distance matters most: at even strength, goals per unblocked shot from outside home plate have been under 5% across a decade of NHL data. That metric counts misses in the denominator, so it is a different and lower number from shooting percentage. On the power play the same map puts effectively the whole zone at or above 5% — approximate in where the line falls, not in its direction — so it is no argument against a point shot there. Shooting covers shot-location value.
2. The royal road pass is the highest-value pass type measured, roughly double the next one — crossing the centre line before a shot finished at 15.50%, because the goalie cannot re-square in time; that ranks pass types against each other, and no measurement here weighs a pass against a zone entry, a forecheck recovery or a shot. That is volunteer-tracked Passing Project data, 51,308 shot attempts at 5-on-5 — which is not the same as even strength, and excludes the power play — so it is not comparable with shooting percentages, and it is not a power-play number.
3. Look across the middle before you look up the wall. The seam opens briefly and closes permanently; the safe option up the wall does not. Scan them in that order and you can still have both — scan them the other way round and the seam has gone.
4. A cycle is a set-up, not an outcome. If it does not end in a shot from the home-plate area, a royal road pass, a screened point shot or a net drive, it did nothing — and a point shot needs a screen and two rebound hunters. And where the cycle puts you on the wall, one qualifier outranks all of it: never your back to the boards, never duck, and never the point of your shoulder. Get your skates parallel to the boards instead, forearm and hip to the wall, head up and chin off your chest.
5. Screen from outside the blue paint, without contact — that is normally legal and worth doing constantly. Plant with your head up and your chin off your chest, and know where the near post is before you get there — the job puts you still, with your eyes off the defender, so you are moved sideways by a body you are feeling rather than watching, and the flexed neck is what turns a collision with a post into a spinal injury. A legal box-out walks you along the same path, so that half is not a checking-league point. Now the legality. Inside the crease, what voids the goal with no contact at all is a significant position — a substantial part of your body in the paint for more than an instantaneous period, obstructing the goalie's vision and impairing their ability to defend (NHL Rule 69.3). Outside the crease, expect nothing from 69.1 — its positioning limb sits under a "should be disallowed only if" ceiling, and both books' own tables answer "Goal is allowed" for an outside-the-crease screen that does impair the goalie (NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, Situations 5C and 5E). The permission stops at the paint, and under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada the painted line counts as crease, so keep your skates clear of it too. And once a goalkeeper makes contact establishing position in the crease, 69.3 requires you to give ground immediately — a goal scored while you hold your position is disallowed, and the rule adds a penalty whether or not one is, though both books' own tables assess none in the goal-scored case. Under USA Hockey Rule 625(b) and the IIHF book, standing in the crease can also cost you the zone. And the two amateur books differ from the NHL and from each other. USA Hockey 625(b) voids the goal on your position in the crease alone, whoever scored — unless the puck preceded you into the crease, the goalkeeper is out of the crease area, or a defending player's interference is what put you there. Do not hear that middle exception as a free run at an empty crease: Casebook Rule 625, Situation 9 disallows the goal and adds an interference minor where the goalkeeper was "attempting to return to the goal crease" and you prevented them from making a play. Hockey Canada 8.5 does not run any of this: it allows a teammate's goal from outside the crease provided the player in the crease stays completely passive, and disallows the goal under Interpretation 3 to 8.5(a) where that player impedes "the goaltender's vision or movements". What neither book reaches is a screen set from outside the crease, so out there they are the more permissive books — and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 2 to 8.5(a) penalises you personally if you are fouled into the goaltender and make no effort to avoid them, though its Interpretation 1 excepts only a player whom the foul left unable to avoid the contact. ⚠️ And Hockey Canada's ladder for this rule does not stop at a minor: 8.5(b) reaches a major plus game misconduct — an ejection — at the referee's discretion on the degree of violence of impact with nobody hurt, and makes it mandatory for charging the goaltender and mandatory for any interference-with-goaltender foul that injures an opponent; 8.5(c) reaches a match penalty. ⚠️ And USA Hockey's ladder does not stop at a minor either: 607(d) Note 1 routes any "deliberate body contact or check" on a goalkeeper to charging, which is never a bare minor there — 607(c) is "[a] minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty" where the goalkeeper is "within the goal crease or privileged area", an area reaching from the end-zone face-off spots back to the end boards, and 607(e) reaches a match penalty. Its Casebook at Rule 607, Situation 4 runs three rungs: forced into the goalkeeper by a defender, there is no penalty where you "clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact"; a minor plus misconduct where you were "going hard to the goal" and made "an honest attempt to avoid the goalkeeper"; and the major plus game misconduct or match penalty where you made none and "recklessly endanger[ed] the goalkeeper by accelerating through the contact, or by extending the arms or dropping the shoulder to deliver the hit." Screen with your position; do not arrive into the goalie.
6. Behind the net is an attacking position, not a dead end — nobody can come at you from directly behind, though you can still be driven into the goal frame. Passes from below the goal line finished at 6.73% in that same volunteer-tracked 5-on-5 sample of all attempts.
7. The seconds right after a shot are the most dangerous moment in a possession — a team that has just put a shot on goal scores again within three seconds about five times as often as in a three-second window picked at random, read off the NHL's raw play-by-play feed rather than taken from published statistics — and the defending team recovers roughly 60% of rebounds. That 60% is Greg Revak's, worked off a chart by Alex Novet that puts recovery by the attacking team at 38–42% wherever the shot came from; no league, season or sample size is stated for it anywhere. You win that race by deciding to be there before the shot.
8. Keep the shape: one player below the puck, one level with it, one above it, two on the blue line. That two-on-the-line rule is a default, not a law — other teams rotate all five, or slide the weak-side defenceman across. Find out which yours plays.
9. Build both attacks. Rush offence lives on speed and numbers in three seconds, set offence on patience over thirty. Teams with only one get shut down.
10. Almost everything here is a coaching choice, not a law — triangle rotation versus overload, whether defencemen pinch, who takes the net front. Find out what your team plays before deciding someone else is out of position. How aggressively you pinch is a choice; whether a late pinch is legal is not — once the puck is gone, so is your check, and it is not capped at a minor in any book. And a second rule reaches the LINE you take rather than the beat you arrive on: NHL and IIHF 56.1 penalise "[m]oving laterally and without establishing body position, then making contact with the non-puck carrier" as interference whatever the timing, and USA Hockey numbers it 625(a)(4). NHL 56.4 gives the Referee a discretionary major on the degree of violence, though its game misconduct, 56.5, arrives only "for an infraction resulting in an injury of an opponent"; IIHF 56.5 reaches a major plus a game misconduct with nobody hurt. And USA Hockey's window is the narrowest of the four — 640(b) makes a minor of every avoidable check on a player who has released a shot or pass, and its Casebook allows one to be finished only on four conditions at once, ruling out in terms "one or two more strides after the puck is gone" (Standard of Play, Situation 10). Its named minor reads "except Adult Male Classifications", and 640 Note 2 catches it there as roughing regardless. USA Hockey does not cap it at a minor either: 602(a) is a match penalty for a player who "recklessly endangers or attempts to injure any opposing player", tied to no named foul at all, and 640(g) and 640(h) reach a major plus a game misconduct and a match penalty — though both get to a late hit only through the sub-section that excepts adult men, so whether they apply in adult men's hockey the book does not say. ⚠️ And before any of it, check that you may hit at all. Body checking is banned at USA Hockey 12U and below and in every girls'/women's and non-check adult classification (Rule 604(a)), and at Hockey Canada U13 and below, throughout female hockey and in any Member-approved division (Rule 7.3) — and both lists are floors rather than ceilings, since a local governing body may bar it in any USA Hockey classification. Britain publishes no age, so ask your league — and British women's hockey runs on IIHF Rule 101.1, which allows a hit only where there is a clear intention of playing the puck or an attempt to gain possession of it, and subject to the exception the rule itself then sets out. Where checking is not permitted, everything above is angling, body position and playing the puck. ⚠️ And where it is permitted, the arrival carries limits of its own. Seal the wall rather than the winger's body; keep your arms and your skates out of it, because USA Hockey 622's Note makes an arm wrapped around an opponent along the boards a holding minor under 622(a), and its 627(a) makes a skate used to "push off" an opponent a major plus a game misconduct, with no kicking motion required and, under Rule 404(b), your team's next game gone with it; get your feet under you for the last strides rather than building speed into the contact, which is charging in three of the four books and never a bare minor under USA Hockey's Rule 607; and never pinch in as a check onto a battle a teammate is already in — USA Hockey 640(e) bars that at any location, with no adult-male exception, and the Summary of Penalties runs it to a major plus a game misconduct or a match. ⚠️ And a winger facing the glass is never the player you take. That posture sits in the read because it tells you they cannot escape with the puck, not because it makes them a target: NHL Rule 41.1 puts the onus on you — "The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize contact" — and driving into their back is checking from behind, for which NHL 43.2 writes "no provision for a minor penalty" and IIHF 43.2 "no option to award a minor penalty". Take the puck, seal the wall, or angle them off it.

Sources — retrieved 27 July 2026

Rules: NHL Official Rules 2025-2026 — Rule 1.7 (Goal Crease), Rule 1.8 (Goalkeeper's Restricted Area), Rule 1.9 (Face-off Spots and Circles), Rule 69 (Interference on the Goalkeeper, 69.1–69.7) — including 69.3's second and third paragraphs, on contact initiated by a goalkeeper establishing position and the attacker's duty to "give ground", read in both the plain and -layout extractions on 31 August 2026; and 69.7 read on the same date for all four of its limbs, which the NHL prints as three paragraphs with the relief running on inside the second — the permission, the disallowed goal where a goalkeeper "has been pushed into the net together with the puck by an attacking player after making a stop" with "appropriate penalties", the relief where a defending player caused that push, and the third paragraph on a puck under a player in or around the crease, whose penalty shot resolves through Rule 63.6 and Rule 67.4 and reaches "[n]o defending player, except the goalkeeper". 78.5(ix) is cited only as a cross-reference, because it drops "by an attacking player" and writes "after making a save" where 69.7 writes "after making a stop" — together with Reference Tables, Table 14 (Rule 69 – Interference on the Goalkeeper Situations), to which 69.3 refers in terms. Table 14's Situations 5 C and 5 E — the outside-the-crease and on-the-crease-line screens, both answered "Goal is allowed" — and 5 B and 5 D, the same conduct inside the crease, both answered "Goal is disallowed", were read on 2 September 2026 by the same method; Situations 6 B and 6 D were read by column slice rather than from the flattened text, because the table is set in two columns and a flattened read splices the situation into the result: Situation 6 B (attacker does not vacate, "no goal is scored on the play") gives "Minor penalty. This player runs the risk of 'bad things' happening by being in the crease", and Situation 6 D (attacker "refuses to give ground at the time a goal is scored") gives "Goal is disallowed. A minor penalty is not assessed (loss of goal only)." ⚠️ Citation-resolution note: Table 14 is divided into numbered groups — "5. SCREENING SITUATIONS", "6. CROWDING THE GOALKEEPER" and so on — each lettered from A, so a bare row letter resolves to more than one row and is not a citation. Group 5 has its own rows B and D, on the planted screen, and they answer differently. The NHL prints the group heading and the row letter separately rather than the string "6 D", which is the IIHF's literal numbering, so the NHL form here is a reconstruction of the table's structure. — which is the conflict with 69.3's own penalty sentence set out in §Goaltender interference. Rule 78 (Goals, incl. 78.4 and 78.5), Rule 80 (High-sticking the Puck) — 80.1, the conditional whistle, 80.3, the disallowed goal and its crossbar test, both read in the extracted rulebook text on 31 August 2026, and Rule 72.3 (Refusing to Play the Puck — High Stick), which stops play where a high-sticker's teammate "elects not to play the puck to avoid the stoppage of play, and the opposing team also abstains from playing the puck" — read on 1 September 2026 alongside its word-for-word IIHF twin at IIHF Rule 72.3, Hockey Canada's Interpretation 2 to Rule 6.9(a)(i) read in the -layout extraction, and USA Hockey's Casebook Rule 621 Situations 4 to 15. The IIHF Situation Handbook 2025/26 v1.1 carries fifteen Rule 80 rulings, read in full; none of them puts the simultaneous touch of USA Hockey's Situation 10, which is why that one is left unconfirmed rather than called a divergence — Rule 83 (Off-side) — 83.1, the both-skates test, and 83.3, whose definition of a delayed off-side is an attacking player who "has preceded the puck across the attacking blue line", so it is the puck coming back in that creates one. Read for the pinch and the late hit: Rule 56.1, under which the player deemed in possession "may be checked legally, provided the check is rendered immediately following his loss of possession" — the NHL puts no measurable distance on "immediately" — and 56.1’s body-position clause, read 9 September 2026: "A player may “block” the path of an opponent provided he is in front of his opponent and moving in the same direction. Moving laterally and without establishing body position, then making contact with the non-puck carrier is not permitted and will be penalized as interference", which is the clause that reaches a pinch changing course into a winger who no longer has the puck; Rule 56.2(iii), the minor, "[o]n any player who deliberately checks an opponent, including the goalkeeper, who is not in possession of the puck"; Rule 56.4, "The Referee, at his discretion, may assess a major penalty, based on the degree of violence, to a player guilty of interfering with an opponent"; and Rule 56.5, which is where the NHL's late-hit ladder of on-ice penalties stops — "When a major penalty is imposed under this rule for an infraction resulting in an injury of an opponent, a game misconduct shall be imposed", so the NHL attaches the game misconduct to an injury where the other three books do not, all read by line range on 31 August 2026; Rule 41.1 (Boarding), for the onus sentence — "The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize contact"; and Rule 43 (Checking from Behind), specifically 43.2, "There is no provision for a minor penalty for checking from behind", 43.3, the major, and 43.5, under which a game misconduct "must be assessed anytime a major penalty is applied for checking from behind". The Rule 56, 41.1 and 43 strings were located in the extracted rulebook text on 29 August 2026.

High-sticking the puck — the interpretation layer and the fifth book, all read by line range on 1 September 2026: IIHF Situation Handbook 2025/26 (v1.1) — Situation 80.2 ("Deflections off opposing players or an official does not constitute control of the puck and therefore the play must be stopped"), 80.6 (blade "clearly above the crossbar", puck striking the shaft near the waist, "No. This is a good goal"), 80.12 (a high-sticked puck frozen by the opposing goalkeeper — face-off "at one of the end zone face-off circles in Team B's end"), 80.13 (a high-sticked goal disallowed — face-off "in the neutral zone on the nearest face-off spot. Rule 76.2. Rule 80.4") ⚠️ — that last reference resolves to nothing, and the slip is the book’s rather than this document’s. The IIHF Rulebook’s Rule 80 ends at 80.3, running 80.1 High-sticking the Puck, 80.2 Face-off Location and 80.3 Disallowed Goal in the 2025/26 v1.0, the 2025/26 v1.1 and the 2026/27 editions alike, with no 80.4 in any of them; Situation 80.4’s own trailer cites "Rule 80.2, Rule 80.4 and Rule 76" too, and the 2026/27 revision corrected neither. Also 80.15 ("The only way this is nullified is if an opponent gains possession and control of the puck"); and its Rule 72 block of seven rulings, which the earlier reading of this material had not reached — Situation 72.5 carries the rationale for the draw staying where the play stopped, "the team that batted or high-sticked the puck cannot play the puck, only the opposing team can, and should they abstain, the whistle is blown, and the face-off stays right there" · NHL Rule 76.2 and IIHF Rule 76.2, for the face-off after an illegally scored goal — "When a goal is illegally scored by the attacking team by directing, batting, kicking or high-sticking the puck into the goal, the resulting face-off shall take place in the neutral zone at the nearest face-off spot", word for word in both · Hockey Canada Rule 6.9 read in full in the -layout extraction with all five Interpretations — Interpretation 1 ("A deflection results in possession but not control of the puck"), Interpretation 4 (stick above the shoulder, puck striking the butt-end below it, "GOAL"), and 6.9(c), which in minor and female divisions sends a player who high-sticks or attempts to high-stick the puck and contacts an opponent to Rule 7.6 Head Contact, whose preamble "supersedes any other rules, with the exception of Rule 7.10 – Fighting". ⚠️ Citation-resolution note: 6.9(c) is printed "In Minor of Female divisions" — of for or — so it is paraphrased above rather than quoted · USA Hockey Official Rules and Casebook 2025-29, Rule 621, Situation 9 — a high-sticked puck deflected into the crease and covered by the goalkeeper, face-off "At an end face-off spot in the offending player's Defending Zone", the same facts as IIHF Handbook 80.12 and the opposite answer · CARHA Hockey Official Rule Book, printed 2020 (PDF) — Rule 62 (High Sticks) read in full with the Note to 62(b) and its two case situations. 62(a)'s minor is measured against the opponent's body, not the carrier's — "while carrying their stick above the waist height of their opponent" — a reference point the book prints twice, restating it in Rule 62 Situation 1 as "above waist height of opponent", ruled a minor. 62(b) is a major for contact above an opponent's shoulders "whether or not injury results", accidental or intentional, and the book offers no route back down to a minor for a stick: Rule 50 Head Contact is written for equipment "other than a stick" and its opening Note reads "If a stick is used on contact this infraction falls under Rule 62 – High Sticks." 62(a), the minor, is a different offence rather than a lower rung of (b) — "checks an opponent or intimidates an opponent while carrying their stick above the waist height of their opponent", which requires no contact and sets no upper limit — and the first of Rule 62's two case situations applies it to a swing at the puck that catches the player above the waist. ⚠️ The Note to 62(b), read as a window because a page banner splits Rule 62 across it, adds a Game Misconduct under Rule 30 where the major was for intentionally contacting an opponent, and withholds it for an accidental high stick "except when injury results"; 62(c) is a match penalty for deliberately attempting to injure or injuring. Rule 30(a) was read the same day and is where that sits: any major is "ruled off the ice for the remainder of the game (Major penalty plus Game Misconduct)", its Note naming the accidental high stick as the book's only exception. 62(d) is the puck rule and prints no possession test and no exception; 62(b) is a major for contact above an opponent's shoulders "whether or not injury results", accidental or intentional, with no minor rung anywhere in the rule. ⚠️ The word "crossbar" does not occur in that book at all — CARHA sets it as two words, "cross bar", so a search for the closed spelling returns a false zero. On CARHA’s own spelling it occurs five times, all of them in the goal-frame specification and in Rule 60’s definition of a goal — "between the goal posts, below the cross bar, and completely across the goal line" — and never in Rule 62. Quotations are de-hyphenated across the extraction's line-wraps. ⚠️ Wording note on the two 72.3s: a word-level comparison on 1 September 2026 found them not literally identical — the IIHF capitalises Player, writes their stick for his stick, quotes "normal height of the shoulders" and "face-off", and closes with "➔ Rule 76.2 – Face-off Locations" where the NHL prints "See also 76.2." Every clause quoted in this document is verbatim in both, so the body scopes the claim to the sentence rather than calling the two rules word for word

Shot quality and analytics: Hockey Graphs — Expected Goals Model with Pre-Shot Movement, Part 4: Variable Importance · NHL.com — Analytics with Alison: Dangerous Passes — the 15.50% and 6.73% pass-type figures are Alan Wells' analysis of Ryan Stimson's Passing Project data, not Corey Sznajder's tracking · NHL.com — Analytics with Alison: Digging into High-Danger Chances · The Coaches Site — The Problem with Point Shots, According to Analytics — bylined Greg Revak, not Alex Novet; it reproduces a rebound chart of Novet's and the article's rebound-recovery percentage is Revak's arithmetic on that chart, first published as Hockey's Arsenal — Point Shots Suck, 20 September 2020. Both fetched 2 September 2026: article HTTP 200, chart image HTTP 200, newsletter HTTP 200. Revak links Novet's full presentation on Google Drive; that link returns 403 through this network's filtering proxy rather than from Google, so it was not read here. The point-shot 3%-with-traffic / 1%-or-less-without pair in section 1 is Revak's too, and its provenance was traced on 4 September 2026: both pages refetched, HTTP 200, no redirect. The 20 September 2020 newsletter states the pair with no attribution attached — the strings "Clear Sight", "Valiquette", "royal road", "HockeyViz" and "McCurdy" return zero occurrences on that page in raw HTML and in stripped text alike. The 11 April 2024 republication is the only place the credit appears, once, and it credits the map and the dataset jointly: "[c]ombining that with other data such as Clear Sight Analytics has come to show that point shots with traffic score around 3% of the time and without traffic score about 1% of the time." "Valiquette" returns zero occurrences there as well, so the link this document previously drew between this figure and the royal-road tracking was not supported by either page and has been withdrawn. The HockeyViz artefact behind the map credit was downloaded and viewed on the same date — a 484 × 589 contour plot titled "Goals per Unblocked Shot, 2007-2017", subtitled "Even-Strength", whose page describes adjustments for the shooter, the goaltender and home ice and nothing else; "traffic" and "screen" occur nowhere on it · HockeyViz — Prediction Model Edgar, Micah Blake McCurdy, 19 September 2017, retrieved 28 August 2026 — the page the "Goals per Unblocked Shot, 2007-2017" maps are published on, and where "shot" is defined as an unblocked shot. It carries three maps — even strength, power play and penalty kill — and the figure quoted in this document is the even-strength one

Post-shot scoring hazard (section 10): NHL public play-by-play feed — games 2024020001–2024020400 of the 2024-25 regular season, 20,762 shots on goal and 2,498 goals. The 1.37% three-second figure, the 0.26% baseline and the 11.4% / 19.7% shares of all goals are derived from the event timestamps in that feed; they are not published statistics.

The royal road: GoalieCoaches.com — The Royal Road: What Is It and How Can Goalies Improve Their Chances? · Vital Hockey Skills — The Royal Road

Offensive zone systems and cycling: Creating Offense With a "5 Man Unit" (coaching handout, PDF) · Ivy Hockey — How to Execute the Cycle in the Offensive Zone · Sound of Hockey — Tactics 101: Owning Possession Through the Cycle · Sound of Hockey — Hakstol's Scheme and Philosophies: Offensive Zone Plays · Beer League Tips — Basic Offensive Zone Structure

Net-front play: Ivy Hockey — Net-Front Screening Tactics to Score More Goals · Better Hockey — How to Play the Net Front

Pinching and defenceman activation: Ivy Hockey — When and How Defensemen Should Pinch in the Offensive Zone · How To Hockey — Defensemen's Guide to the Pinch

Offensive-zone faceoffs: Team SG Online — Offensive Zone Faceoff Set Play

Rule-set comparison: USA Hockey Official Rules of Ice Hockey 2025-29 — Rule 625(b) (Interference, attacking player in the goal crease — the flat position bar, its neutral-zone face-off and its push-in relief), read 2 September 2026 with its own Note, which defines the goal crease area as "all the space outlined by the semi-circular crease lines (including crease lines) and extending vertically to the level of the top of the goal frame" — so the painted line is crease under this book, Rule 625(a)(8) (the minor, which requires physical contact), Rule 625(a)(4), read 9 September 2026 — a minor for "[a] defending player who changes their skating lane or foot speed in an effort to play the body of an opponent who is no longer in control of the puck", this book’s counterpart to the NHL and IIHF lateral-movement clause — and Rule 617(c)(4) (the two limbs on which a goal is disallowed), and Rule 630 Offside — 630(d), which grants the delayed off-side and the tag-up "(For all Youth 15-Only levels and above, all Girls 16U levels and above, High School and Adult classifications only)", and 630(c), which carries no classification clause and is what stops play immediately below them; note 630(d)(1) makes the puck exiting the zone a nullifier of a delayed off-side, not a cause of one, quoted from the rulebook text; read in full for a screening or goaltender-vision provision, of which it has none — that is a search of the playing rules, and the separate USA Hockey Rules and Casebook was searched for one too and has none either — its seventeen Rule 625 situations run to stick and bench interference, the crease bar and a goalkeeper's abandoned stick, and write nothing about a screen or the goaltender's view. Also Rule 640 Unnecessary Roughness (Roughing) — 640(b), the late-hit minor: "A minor penalty shall be assessed (except Adult Male Classifications) to any player who delivers an avoidable body check to an opponent who is no longer in control of the puck. A player who has released a shot or pass is no longer considered to be in control of the puck. They are considered to be vulnerable or defenseless and are not eligible to be body checked"; 640 Note 2, which carries no classification exception and directs a roughing penalty against a player who "delivers an avoidable body check to an opponent after the whistle or who is no longer in control of the puck", adding that "[t]he onus is on the player delivering the check to avoid placing a vulnerable or defenseless opponent in danger of potential injury"; and 640(g) and 640(h), the major plus game misconduct and the match penalty where an act under (b, c, d, e or f) recklessly endangers — both reaching a late hit only through (b), the sub-section that excepts adult men, while (d) and (e) carry no classification limit. Rule 640(e) and its Note, read 8 September 2026 — "A minor penalty shall be assessed to any player who delivers a body check to an opponent who is physically engaged for possession of the puck with one or more other players" and "When two or more players are physically engaged for possession of the puck they are considered vulnerable or defenseless and are not eligible to be body checked" — ⚠️ the two are coextensive rather than broader-and-narrower: an opponent engaged with one or more other players IS two or more players engaged. The Casebook's Summary of Penalties lists 640(e,g) under Minor or Major (plus Game Misconduct Penalty) and 640(h) under Match Penalty Option; Rule 640, Situation 6 answers "[a] penalty for Roughing" and closes that a minor, a major plus game misconduct or a match "shall be assessed in every instance when a player delivers a body check to an opponent who is physically engaged for possession of the puck with two or more players" — ⚠️ that closing sentence, read literally, would require a third player, so it is narrower than the rule it illustrates; the printed rule governs. Rule 622 Holding an Opponent, read the same day — its Note naming "wrapping one or both arms around the opponent along the boards in a manner that pins them against the boards and prevents them from playing the puck or skating" as holding, with 622(a) a minor and no classification exception in any limb. Rule 627 Kicking Opponent or Puck, read whole on 9 September 2026 — its Note 2, defining a "push-off" as "the action where a player uses their skate(s) in a non-kicking motion to make contact with the opponent", and 627(a), "A major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player or goalkeeper who uses their skate to 'push off' an opponent" — ⚠️ no limb of Rule 627 carries a classification exception, and Appendix I's Summary of Penalties agrees, listing "627(a) Push off opponent with skate" under Major plus Game Misconduct; with Rule 404(b), read the same day, for what the second half of that costs — a game misconduct "involves the suspension of a player or Team Official for the balance of the game" and "[a] player or Team Official incurring a game misconduct penalty shall also be suspended for the team's next game", with the exception the same sentence carries — "except that when such penalty is imposed under Rule 403(b) (Second Major in Game) there shall be a minimum two-game suspension" — and Rule 403(b) itself, read the same day, whose game misconduct for a second major in the same game suspends the player for their team's "next two games", "in addition to any other required suspensions incurred during the same incident"; and, in the separate Casebook, ⚠️ Rule 627, Situation 1 — the only published interpretation of 627(a) in any book held here, and it is a tangled-players case rather than a boards one: two players who "collide with each other, fall to the ice and become tangled up", one of whom "uses their skate to push off the opposing player", answered "Yes. Rule Reference 627(a)", with the comment "[i]n many cases players don't realize the danger involved with pushing off another player with the skate." The application of 627 to a seal on the wall is this document's reading of Note 2's wording, labelled as a reading where it appears. ⚠️ The phrase "push off" was searched de-hyphenated and whitespace-flattened on the same day across the NHL book in both extractions, the IIHF book in the 2025/26 v1.1 and 2026/27 editions, Hockey Canada in both extractions and CARHA, and returns zero in every one — so of the books held here USA Hockey alone prices it. ⚠️ Rule 604(c)'s Note and the Glossary entry Physical Engagement, read the same day, for what survives in a non-checking classification: "Competitive Contact hockey does not mean 'no contact.' Legal competitive contact … occurs when players are focused on gaining possession of the puck and are simply maintaining established body position. This most often occurs when two players are physically engaged … in front of the goal or along the boards … Legal competitive contact shall not be penalized under this rule. However, deliberate physical contact with an opponent, with no effort to legally play the puck, shall be penalized", and "Two players who are in pursuit of the puck are allowed to use competitive contact provided that possession of the puck remains the sole objective of the two players. This includes opposing players competing for the puck in front of the goal or along the boards." Also Rule 621(d) High Sticks, the high-stick ceiling and the whistle: "Batting the puck above the normal height of the shoulder with the stick is prohibited and no goal can be scored as a result of an attacking player playing the puck above the shoulder with the stick and directly entering the goal", and "play shall be immediately stopped … unless: (1) The puck is batted to an opponent who gains possession of the puck … or (2) A player of the defending team bats the puck into their own goal". The word "crossbar" was searched for across Rule 621 in both volumes and appears in neither; read by line range on 31 August 2026. Also Rule 602(a) Attempt to Injure or Recklessly Endanger an Opponent: "A match penalty shall be assessed to any player or team official who recklessly endangers or attempts to injure any opposing player or team official" — tied to no named foul at all, so it does not depend on which sub-section of 640 applies. Also Rule 607 Charging — 607(c), "A minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be assessed to a player who body checks or charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within the goal crease or privileged area", so no bare minor exists; 607(d) Note 1, which routes the two kinds of contact apart — "any accidental or unavoidable contact that occurs with the goalkeeper shall be penalized under the Interference rule. Any deliberate body contact or check that is delivered to the goalkeeper shall be penalized as charging" — and 607(d) Note 2, defining the "Privileged Area" as "an area outlined by connecting the end zone face-off spots with an imaginary line and imaginary lines from each face-off spot running perpendicular to the end boards"; and 607(e), "A match penalty for reckless endangerment may also be assessed for charging." Read by line range on 1 September 2026. Also Rule 608 Checking from Behind — 608(a), "A minor plus a misconduct penalty, or a major plus a game misconduct penalty, shall be assessed for checking from behind", so never a bare minor — and Rule 604 Body Checking (Competitive Contact Categories) — 604(a), "Body checking is prohibited in the 12 & under youth age classifications and below, all Girls'/Women's age classifications and all non-check Adult classifications", which the same sub-section then extends beyond that list: "A local governing body may prohibit body checking in any classification and is encouraged to provide Competitive Contact options at all levels of recreational play"; and 604(b), "Any time a team from a Competitive Contact category (see sub-section (a) above) plays a team from a Body Checking category, body checking shall be prohibited under this rule". Both located in the extracted rulebook text on 29 August 2026 · USA Hockey Official Rules and Casebook 2025-29 (PDF) — Standard of Play, Situation 10, on when a body check may still be finished after the puck has gone: a prior effort to gain possession, "an arm's length plus stick length" at the instant the puck was dumped, the check already "in the process of being delivered", and minimised force, with "one or two more strides after the puck is gone" ruled out in terms — corroborated at Rule 640, Situation 3 and Standard of Play, Situation 23, which state the same test as avoidability and give "finishing the check" "no place in youth hockey". Also Rule 607, Situation 4, which is where USA Hockey writes the effort test its playing rules do not print: asked what guidelines decide the penalty grade for charging a goalkeeper in the crease or privileged area, it answers that "[i]n the case where a defending player has forced the attacking player into their own goalkeeper, no penalty should be assessed provided the attacking player has clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact with the goalkeeper", and that "if the player makes no attempt to avoid the goalkeeper and recklessly endangers the goalkeeper by accelerating through the contact, or by extending the arms or dropping the shoulder to deliver the hit, the major plus game misconduct, or match penalty option would be the proper call"; read by line range on 1 September 2026. It governs the penalty, not the goal, and Rule 625(b)'s push-in relief still prints no proviso of its own. Also Rule 607, Situation 6, confirming that the goalkeeper's Privileged Area does include the ice behind the goal line and "extends to the closer end boards"; read by line range on 1 September 2026. Also Rule 625, Situations 1 to 17, read for a screening or goaltender-vision provision, of which they have none — but two of them carry limits the printed rule does not. Situation 9 allows the goal where the goalkeeper is "completely out of their crease" and an attacker precedes the puck into it, and then adds: "However, if the goalkeeper is attempting to return to the goal crease and there is any interference by the attacking player who prevents the goalkeeper from making a play, then the goal must be disallowed and an interference penalty shall be assessed." Situation 10 answers "No" to whether the referee must stop play every time a stick or skate enters the crease, since play "should not be stopped because a player momentarily places their stick and/or skates in the goal crease, unless they interfere with the goalkeeper in any manner" — while its second half is what makes the bar flat, the Referee having "no alternative but to disallow the goal" where one is scored with an attacker's stick or skates in the crease and the goalkeeper in it. Also Rule 621, Situations 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 and 15, the whole fifteen-situation block read by line range on 1 September 2026 — Situation 15 deciding when play stops, "For play to be stopped for the high stick violation, an offending team player must be the first to gain possession of the puck. A deflection off of a player from either team would not cause the play to be completed", answering "Yes" to whether such a play continues, with its own exception where the puck "goes directly in the goal of the non-offending team"; Situation 6 holding the whistle until the offending team's goalkeeper gains possession though neither printed exception applies; Situations 8, 10 and 12 the completions that do fire early — the puck "unplayable", "not in possession of the opposing team", and an opponent declining to play it; Situation 7 answering "No" to a goal where the blade was above the shoulders and the puck struck the butt-end below them, "When any part of the stick is carried above the shoulders, the entire stick is considered to be high", and Situations 4 and 5 — both goal-validity rulings asking "Does the goal count?", not whistle-timing ones — each holding that "[t]he puck must come into possession, however briefly, of the defending player for it to be considered 'batted to an opponent.'" Searched for the late-hit, screening and high-stick questions only · Hockey Canada Playing Rules 2026-2028 (PDF) — the glossary entry GOAL CREASE, read 2 September 2026 in both the plain and -layout extractions: "The half-circle of space designed for the protection of the goaltender. The lines of the crease are considered part of the crease", and Rule 8.5 (Interference with the Goaltender, in Section 8, Restraining Fouls) with its Interpretations 1, 2 and 3 including Note 1: the crease bar and the other-attacker carve-out that stops it being flat, the "onus is always on the attacking player" sentence, Interpretation 3's impairment ground for a player standing in the crease, the sentence allowing a goal to be disallowed "without assessing an attacking player a penalty", the narrow push-in exception, and the mandatory penalty on an attacker fouled into the goaltender who makes no effort to avoid them. Also 8.5(a)–(e), the penalty tiers: the minor at (a); at (b) a major and game misconduct at the referee's discretion "based on the degree of violence of impact" and mandatorily — "will be assessed" — for a player who "charges the goaltender" (Note 1 referring the definition to Rule 7.4(b) Interpretation 2) and for one who "injures an opponent by an Interference with the Goaltender infraction that would otherwise call for a Minor penalty"; at (c) a match penalty; at (d) the bar on any misconduct; at (e) the automatic game misconduct on any 8.5(b) major. Its only two references to a goaltender's view both reach a player in the crease. Also Rule 6.11 Off-side, whose 6.11(b) delayed-off-side and nullification clauses carry no classification clause at all — an absence that is deliberate rather than merely unfound, since the book scopes by division where it wants to (Rule 7.3 penalises body-checking — the definition opening it reading that body-checking results "when a player leaves their skating lane to make contact", read 9 September 2026, which is where this book puts what the NHL and the IIHF write into 56.1 — and says of itself "This rule applies only in divisions of U13 and below, in female hockey, and any other divisions approved by a Member of Hockey Canada"; Rule 2.4(d)(i) makes goaltender’s leg pads mandatory for a player replacing the goaltender "in divisions of U13 and above"). Read for the late hit: Rule 8.3 Interference, which lists delivering "a 'late hit' to an opponent" as interference and defines it — "A 'late hit' is defined as a hit where the opponent has released the puck and the offending player does not make immediate contact with the opposing player. Immediate contact is best described as contact occurring within a maximum distance of an arm and stick length between the puck carrier and the player delivering the check, at the instant the puck has been released" — the only measured proximity test of the four books apart from USA Hockey's; and 8.3(b), a major and game misconduct "at the discretion of the Referee, based on the degree of violence of the impact", mandatory for a player who "injures an opponent by an interference infraction that would otherwise call for a Minor penalty". Also Rule 6.9 High-Sticking the Puck — 6.9(a), the conditional whistle ("play will be stopped if the offending player, or a teammate, gains possession and control of the puck"), and 6.9(b), whose determining factor "is the height of the stick relative to the height of the crossbar" and which allows the goal where the puck contacts a part of the stick below the crossbar "(despite some other portion of the stick being above the crossbar)". Also Rule 7.5 Checking from Behind — 7.5(a), "A Minor penalty and a Game Misconduct penalty will be assessed", so never a bare minor. ⚠️ On "USA Hockey's late-hit window is the narrowest of the four" in §Pinching and §"Take the player": that is a comparison drawn by reading all four books' provisions side by side, not a ranking any book makes. USA Hockey's Casebook test requires everything this arm-and-stick-length test requires and three conditions besides — a prior effort to gain possession, the check already in delivery, and minimised force — while the NHL (56.1) and the IIHF (56.1) put no measurable distance on immediacy at all · IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26 (PDF) — Rule 69 (Interference on the Goalkeeper, 69.1–69.8) — 69.3 printing the NHL's give-ground paragraph in the same terms but with "the appropriate penalty for 'Goalkeeper interference'" where the NHL writes a minor, identical in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions, read 31 August 2026; and 69.7, whose four limbs the IIHF prints at the same number in both editions, differing from the NHL's only in capitalising Player, in writing "goal crease" for "crease", in putting quotation marks around "incidental contact" and in setting all four limbs off as separate paragraphs where the NHL prints three and keeps the relief inside the second — 78.5(IX) being a cross-reference only, since it too drops "by an attacking Player" and writes "after making a save", and 67.4 being a pointer back to the book's own 63.6 — Rule 1.7 Goal Crease ("In front of each goal frame, one goal crease shall be marked by a red line. The marked line belongs to the Goal Crease", read 2 September 2026 — which the book's own Situation 5E answers the other way), with Appendix IV, Interference on the Goalkeeper situations (Table 16 in 2025/26, renumbered Table 14 in 2026/27), whose Situations 5 C and 5 E answer "Goal is allowed" and 5 B and 5 D "Goal is disallowed", as the NHL's do — read 2 September 2026 in both editions, identical in each — and whose Situations 6 B and 6 D answer as the NHL's B and D do, "A minor penalty is not assessed (loss of goal only)" included; and Rule 83.3 (Delayed Off-side), materially identical to the NHL's and setting no age or category floor — its clause (I) adds one phrase the NHL lacks, that "3D" judgement is not used in this situation when the attacking players tag up — quoted from the rulebook text. Read for the late hit: Rule 56.1, whose lateral-movement clause reads as the NHL’s does but quotes "establishing body position" and "interference" as defined terms and "block the path" where the NHL quotes only "block" — "Moving laterally and without “establishing body position”, then making contact with the non-puck carrier is not permitted and will be penalized as “interference”", read in the 2026/27 edition on 9 September 2026; and which calls a late hit in terms — "A 'late-hit' constitutes reckless endangerment of a Player who 'no longer has control or possession of the puck'" — and sets two judged conditions rather than a measured one, that the aggressor be "in the immediate vicinity of the skater with the puck" and still within an "objectively reasonable window of opportunity" to deliver the check; and Rule 56.5, under which the Referee may assess a major and a game misconduct where a Player "recklessly endangers their opponent by an 'interference or a late-hit'" — reckless endangerment, with no injury required. Also Rule 43 (Checking from Behind): 43.2, "there is no option to award a minor penalty", and 43.3, a major and "an automatic game misconduct penalty". Also Rule 80 (High-sticking the Puck) — 80.1 and 80.3, which print the NHL's sentences in the IIHF's wording, including "contacting the puck above the height of the crossbar" and "[t]he determining factor is where the puck makes contact with the stick"; read in both the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions on 31 August 2026 and identical in each. Read for whether checking is permitted at all: Rule 101.1, which sits in the book's RULE 101 WOMEN'S HOCKEY – SPECIFIC PLAYING RULES section and is therefore a women's-hockey rule and not a general one — bodychecking "is allowed when there is a clear intention of playing the puck or attempting to 'gain possession' of the puck with the exception from the situation described in this rule"; players competing for possession "are not allowed to use the boards to make contact with an opponent to eliminate her from the play, push her into the boards, or pin her along the boards"; and an illegal hit is a "Minor penalty (2')" or a "Major penalty (5') and automatic game misconduct penalty". Nothing else in the IIHF book restricts checking by age or category: its glossary defines a legal body check, and its junior section (Rules 200–202) covers age eligibility, facial protection and one playing rule, 201.1. The rule reads word for word the same in the 2026/27 edition, checked 29 August 2026 · CARHA Hockey Official Rule Book, printed 2020 (PDF) — Rule 66 (Interference/Protection of the Goalkeeper), read in full by line range on 1 September 2026 and quoted from the rulebook text. Rule 66(b) is a single lettered clause carrying six unnumbered, unlettered paragraphs, so nothing in the layout subordinates one to another: the opening minor for contact, the crease bar with its push-in relief, the minor on an attacker who "fails to attempt to avoid making contact with the goalkeeper", the same for one "not in possession of the puck, who is tripped or caused to fall", the minor for deliberate contact, and the goalkeeper pushed into the net. Whether the third of those qualifies the relief in the second is nowhere stated, and this document does not decide it. CARHA has conditioning devices and uses them elsewhere — "Notwithstanding the above", set as its own paragraph in Rule 46; "However,"; "except when" — and Rule 66(b) prints none of them between the two. The formula opening that paragraph, "A Minor penalty shall be assessed/imposed on…", is instead how CARHA opens a freestanding offence: it opens two whole rules of its own (Rule 68 Kick Shot, Rule 81 Spitting), and a goalkeeper's puck-out-of-play minor stacked inside the bench-minor clause of Rule 55(a), which plainly does not qualify it. The word "incidental" was searched across the whole book and appears twice, both in Notes to the too-many-players rule, so the missing incidental-contact allowance is a checked absence rather than an unfound one · IIHF Situation Handbook 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 — Situation 69.1, on a player "in the crease screening the goalkeeper" whose team scores: "The goal shall be disallowed, and no additional penalty assessed. Rule 69.1 and Rule 69.3", quoted in §Goaltender interference as authority running against 69.3's conjunctive test, together with the Handbook's Foreword — "in case of any contradictions, the valid IIHF Rulebook is always the basis" — which is what subordinates it. Also Situation 69.2, on a goalkeeper who initiates contact with an attacker standing with one foot in the crease as the puck goes in: "No goal – no penalty. The attacking player must give ground to the goalkeeper to play its position within the goal crease"; and Situation 69.6, disallowing the goal "even though the attacking player vacates the established position immediately, the contact impairs the goalkeeper's ability to defend its goal". All three were read on 31 August 2026 and are identical in the two editions. Neither USA Hockey volume nor Hockey Canada's Rule 8.5 and its four Interpretations writes a give-ground obligation or addresses a goalkeeper establishing position — searched in both USA Hockey volumes for "give ground", "goalkeeper initiates", "initiates contact", "establish position", "establishing position", "vacate the crease" and "vacate their position" over a de-hyphenated, whitespace-flattened copy, and by reading Hockey Canada's 8.5 in full in the -layout extraction.

Royal road figures — provenance: NHL.com — Kevin Woodley, "Unmasked: Analytics provide new evaluation tools", 18 December 2014 (archived; the live URL now 404s) — earliest located statement of the 76% figure, attributed to Valiquette by name, and source for "There is no database, at least not one available to the public, tracking every shot in the NHL with that kind of detail" · The Hockey News — Ken Campbell, "What's the next dimension of analytics? Former NHL goalie Steve Valiquette knows", 1 February 2015 · OMHA — Chris Boyle, "The Most Important Line on the Ice You've Never Heard Of" — source for the 100-game sample, the seven-category breakdown of the 76%, and the "33%" / "3%" figures · Hockey Graphs — Alan Wells, "Weighted Shot Rates Based on the Passing Project", 6 September 2016 — independent replication on public data, "51,308 shots at 5v5"

James Bloom, "Offensive Zone Play", Learning to Play the Game. https://learn-ice-hockey.com/systems/offensive_zone_play/ — licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.

<a href="https://learn-ice-hockey.com/systems/offensive_zone_play/">Offensive Zone Play</a> by <a href="https://github.com/jamesdbloom">James Bloom</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC 4.0</a>.

@misc{systems-offensive-zone-play,
  author  = {James Bloom},
  title   = {Offensive Zone Play},
  howpublished = {Learning to Play the Game},
  url     = {https://learn-ice-hockey.com/systems/offensive_zone_play/},
  note    = {Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}