NHL101: Stay at Home Defensemen

[aqualizard]

Hello and Good Day!

I have noticed some teams I control have a tendency to keep a defensive shape (which I like!) and other teams sometimes suffer from Red Sea Syndrome, where they decide to part like the Red Sea and generously grant free access to my net to attacking forwards. Or sometimes they have pinched so far forward I am open to breakaways and 2 and 3 on nones happening repeatedly.

Why?

Is this a matter the Defensive Awareness of my defenders? Or more a matter of my D having high Offensive awareness, and wanting to pinch? Or perhaps speed is a factor, and I should have fat and slow tortoises on D that would rather not, or cannot, skate to the other end of the rink?

In short, if I want stay at home defensemen, what must I do game-play-wise (never pinch?), or what attributes should I look for when deciding who gets ice time?

[Brutus]

If you have slow, fat defenseman w/ high def awareness, more times than not, you'll catch them inside the crease with the goalie than any where else, which can give your desired effect.

But, that won't stop the 1000 one timers that will go by both them & your goalie.

Also, they don't really stand still, but kind of skate around, so if the other team comes into your zone while they happen to have wondered off to the corner (for no reason), they take longer to get back to the goal area to defend.

So, big & slow & high on def awareness will give you more def advantages but your offense will be more predictable because it will have only 3 attackers & you will give up easier, mid to long range one timers that still find the net.

Fast defenseman cover more terroritory stealing passes & reaching guys on breakaways & checks, but can get themselves out of position.

Best defensive strategy I can advise is try to see when you are losing the puck, and get a forward, preferably a center, back to the middle of your zone. This seems to clog things up enough to allow the others to reset in time & also be in position to stop one timers.

Load up any saved games on the forum of zalex or plabax & watch how they control their forwards on defense.

And, chasing the puck for those mid ice checks creates the most fun style but missing them is often where your defense then gets exposed.

[aqualizard]

Thanks for the reply.

You mentioned "If you have slow, fat defenseman w/ high def awareness...', so are you confirming that high Defensive Awareness translates to stay-at-home defense?

Relatedly, will a high Offensive Awareness translate to defensemen going on the attack more? (So in desiring stay-at-homers, a low OA and high DA are key?)

Edited November 17, 2015 by aqualizard

[jer_33]

I believe that the Off/Def awareness relate to the players positioning in all zones. Weight and speed would also dictate how effective those are. A defenseman with high OFF/DEF better be fast enough to get into position in both ends. So a "stay-at-home" defenceman needs to have a high DEF awareness and relatively low OFF awareness. Alternately a forward with high OFF and relatively low DEF will more often start skating up ice when you gain possession of the puck.

Teams with well-balanced DEF/OFF traits should play a more structured game - but it doesn't always work that way.

[Brutus]

I find even FAT DUMB defenders stay closer to the net because they simply never get that far down the ice!

I could be wrong here. The rest is speculation based on my observations...

I think that each player is skating around with his own independent code, unrelated to the rest of your player's positions, but there is relation to which team has the puck, and where the puck's at on the ice.

So, where the puck is on the ice and which team has it does effect his next course of actions for each skater BUT for example, if you take your defense men deep into the zone, even behind the other team's net, your forwards will not react by dropping back to cover. If the right defense men sees them skating at your goalie on the other side, he doesn't come running to the "missing" defender's rescue either. You have to switch to him when he becomes the "closest" to the puck (this is where SNES has one of it's few superior moments, because you can just straight switch to left or right defenders by pressing one of the extra coded buttons).

BUT, I do notice that in every second, that each player is making a "coded" decision on what to do next, and the faster players seem to be able to get further away from their defensive zone, and THUS PULLED into a new potential option to follow. The more aggressive players like Bourque are always chasing someone to hit, and so despite having super high defensive awareness, still end up along the boards, etc.

For example, if someone is nearby to check, then they check, if not, the option is to just skate backwards. And that to me is where the faster guys get pulled away. The slow guy never gets close enough to the other team's other skater's to get drawn into the extra "options" of checking/following, etc, so he just keeps skating backwards and stays by the net.

I could be wrong, but seems like once your guy gets yanked into the "mosh pit" of the center ice, he's less likely to come out and go back to sitting in front of the net. Seems like players are given choices based on what is in their immediate vicinity and not as a collective.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Brutus