Trap Killer

[Tiger Trauma]

I think i may have watched someone play who knows how to break the trap


Defensman- 1
behind the net with the puck
2. Beside him at the end of the boards on the right side


Forwards
1. Centreman does his cycle around the net
2.Right wingerman when he's sees an outlet pass to the right defensman he goes to the boards between the blueline and red line!!
3. Left winger at the top of the faceoff cirlce trying to draw 2 players to him if he can

Now the defensman with the puck passes it over the the defensman in the corner.. He'll rifle it up the boards to the right wingerman. Now the right winger can either cross the redline dump it in..or pass to the centreman or left winger breaking out.

The opposition team could probably make adjustmets to stop this but so could the defensive team!

[ScottyWazz]

Not seeing it on paper or whatever, it's difficult to run through my head.

Usually the trap is a 1-2-2 set up; centre deep, wings on faceoff dots outside the zone, d-men at centre ice. With winging the pass up the boards you run two risk: (1)missing the headman entirely and causing an icing or a turnover or (2) not even making it to the headman and having it picked off by the opposing winger and then dumping it into his attacking zone again.

Granted, this was learned from my high school team, so some variations may differ. Also, this is just me trying mock it up in my head with the scenario.

[Tiger Trauma]

I'll try to draw a little thing tomorow to show you how it would work!!

[Tiger Trauma]

The tigers played this system against calgary during the last two periods and it worked..

The centre for the hitmen stood in front of the goalie the wingers were sort of near the blueline but 5-77feet away from the boards. What the tigers did was quickly go Dto D then rifled it up to their centreman between the blueline and redline it zipped past the hitmen wingers ..no chance to catch the pass and the tigers broke out of their own end from there! It worked every time.

Hmmm I I think i found a neat little play that works but im keeping it to myself....the only true way is talent..i agree with you highlander!

[IceMan]

There's one surefire way to beat the trap, and that's with TALENT/SPEED and ALERTNESS.

The trap succeeds because capitalizes on the tendancies of human beings to act on instinct. When confronted with the trap, even though the players know it and see it, they still make the same few mistakes ... either trying to bullrush it, or force the puck up the boards (aka ... falling right into the trap), or by trying long, cross-ice (or worse, no-look) passes, again, the trap is designed, much like the LW Lock to make it look like you have a passing lane when you do not.

The way you beat a trap, is with speed, short passes, and a team effort, as an example:

Puck Carrier is going up the right side ... and the trap begins to converge.

The carrier must draw the trap closer to him (This is the key), and then outlet the puck backwards to a trailer, maybe a few feet or so behind him.

At this same time, the other 2 wings need to be boogeying up, staggered (even crossing in the process). The trailer must hit one of those wings, with a short, quick, accurate pass.

Immediately, that wing needs to find his partner, with another short, accurate, fast pass.

These 3 passes need to happen in about 1 second. It's got to be a bing-bang-boom sort of play, where the trap is "set", but it's broken out of backwards, with 3 very short, very fast passes. This effectively switches the entire flow from the right side of the rink to the left, and leaves the trapping team "stuck" with 3 or 4 guys on one side of the ice. It's got to be fast, it's got to be accurate, and it's got to be short passes, otherwise, you give the trapping team too much time to react.

The trouble is, most guys either don't recognize it fast enough, or are too stubborn to get out of it properly, and therefore, the trap works 90% of the time.

In Philly, we play the Devils a lot, obvioiusly, and I've seen endless numbers of methods tried to beat their trap. The "play" above is the only thing that consistantly worked, and even at the NHL level, the Flyers were only able to execute that correct about 15% of the time.

Up in Everett, we play a LW Lock, which has the same effect on the opposition as the trap, in that it makes it look like there's a passing lane, when there's not, and therefore we get a lot of turnovers in the neutral zone. People like to call our style a trap, because of the end result, but in actuality, it's quite different. You'll notice that trapping teams tend to make things very slow and methodical ... which is why the speed play above works against it to well. The LW Lock, on the other hand, relies a lot less on pure positioning, and more on constant motion (defensive cycling) and anticipation, which makes it harder to recognize, and even harder to "break". The Lock, unlike the trap, when it fails, will happily allow access to the offensive zone, but 99 times out of a hundred, the puck carrier is going to either shoot from a bad angle (making the goalie look like a stud), or force a pass which gets turned the other way quickly.

[C.F]

Want to know how to beat the trap? Ask the Giants. ;)