Defending the Dump & Chase

[mikey3k]

Any concrete way to beat the dump and chase strategy? Its almost a sure puck possession when its done against me.

Im constantly being pinned to the wall and having the puck taken immediately putting me in a bad situation.

[ChubbyD]

Quote: Originally Posted by mikey3k

Any concrete way to beat the dump and chase strategy?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: it depends on the situation. First priority is get to the puck first. You need to figure out where it will be when you can get to it, and go to that point first.

What I do depends on who I control. If I control the d-man on the off-side, I will skate him over in front of the forechecker and slow down, allowing my other d-man to get the puck with a bit of time. If I control the d-man on the side where the puck will be, I get to that point asap. But you still dont go straight in to the boards, you have to give it a bit of a curl at the end, so you're skating along the boards, not into them. Figure out which way you want to take the puck (usually behind the net is safe), move a bit to the opposite side, then turn back toward the puck at the end. This allows you to keep speed up when picking up the puck and not get pinned.

This isn't always available though. If the forechecker is right in your pocket, you just gotta get to the puck and move it right away. Shoot it, pass it, kick it, blow on it, yell at it, whatever. Just move it along the boards to a winger or your other d-man.

The final option is to eat it. I've been able to do this with mixed success, but if you know you're getting pinned, just pin it yourself. Use triangle to pin it along the boards and hopefully a teammate will show up close so you can try to get the puck to him. This is worst case scenario, but it's better than the opposition controlling the play.

These are the tactical things you can do to offset the dump and chase. The more strategic things are to lay off the pressure in the neutral zone so they no longer are dumping and chasing so much. Try different breakout strategies and go for more conservative, which keeps your wingers and defensemen back longer to help. Or send them quicker and just shoot the puck around and hope the wingers beat their defensemen to the puck and generate some odd man rushes that way.

Lots of things you can try.

EDIT: One other thing to try is using the poke check button. I use this a lot if I am chasing the puck in one direction, and the forechecker is coming from the other direction. If I'm gonna get there just a bit before him, I poke check it, and can usually poke it past him. I don't get it either, but hopefully I have a teammate there to pick it up and set up a breakout, or, even better, I can skate around hijm and pick it up myself. Personally, I use the poke check a lot in these types of situations to get the puck to an open area and go get it.