10 Minute
In this drill, start by having your 2 defenseman line up at the center red line, one on each side of the circle. Have your three forwards line up at the far blue line, left winger starts at the red dot by the blue line, center man starts in the middle of the ice and the right-winger starts at the other red dot.
left defense is at the top of left face off circle and right defense at top of right face off circle.
Have your pucks at the boards at both sides of the center red line. Have a coach at both piles of pucks. If you have two goaltenders, have one at each end of the ice. If you only have one goaltender, then you can switch ends with him, giving him teaching points at both ends. In this drill:
the coach will blow the whistle and point to one of the assistant coaches who are standing with the pucks to start the drill
That coach dumps the puck in to the defensive end to start the drill
If there is a goalie, the assistant coach can rim a puck around the boards so that the goalie has to come out and stop the puck behind the net for the defenseman. If the goalie goes out to stop a rim shot,
he should stop the puck and set it up for the defenseman to pick up. He must then get quickly out of the way and back in his net. If the assistant coach on the left wing boards started the first breakout, then the assistant coach of the right wing boards will start the second breakout. Each coach will then shoot pucks alternately to start each breakout with the coach’s whistle.
Let's start with the basic static breakout. First we will have the assistant coach on the right defense side just dump the puck into the right defense corner. This starts the drill. Let's follow each player individually:
Our right defenseman sees the puck is in his corner so he immediately starts skating toward the puck, as he crosses the blue line he should look quickly over his shoulder to see where players are. This also helps during a game to see where the opposing players are. Make sure to teach players to never go straight at the puck but to always go in on an arc. This is not only for safety, but also shows the forwards the direction in which the defenseman is going to carry the puck.
In this case, have the right defenseman skate in an arc, pick up the puck and head to behind the net.
His partner, the left defenseman, also starts to skate hard back to the defensive end, he sees that his partner is going to get the puck so he skates hard to the mid-ice area. Once he crosses the blue line he should pivot and start skating backwards. Now the left defenseman can see all of the oncoming players he can now communicate with his partner, telling him where to go and what to do.
The goalie also can be the eyes for the defenseman; in this situation we will have the left defenseman call out "time, time!”
This tells his partner to skate behind, to the back of the net and stop with the puck.
At this point the left defenseman has stopped approximately 4 feet from the crease in the middle of the slot area facing center ice. Our right defenseman is now behind the net with the puck looking up ice. Our left-winger has skated down the boards and stopped at the hash marks in our end his butt is on the boards, and he is looking at our right defenseman behind the net. He also has his stick down as a target to receive a pass. In this position, our left-winger can not only see our defenseman but he can also observe all of the other players on the ice surface. Our right-winger skates up his boards and does exactly the same as the left-winger, he stops at the hash marks on the right side with his butt on the boards and has his stick down as a target to receive a pass.
Our center-man needs to come down low into our zone [See diagram], the center-man needs to present himself to the puck carrier to receive a pass or to be an option to receive a pass.
In this drill have the center men curl in, toward the left defenseman.
So, the center-man will skate down the mid lane toward our net and then curl toward our left winger. As he begins to curl, the left-winger can call for the puck and our right defenseman can step out and pass the puck to our left-winger. The timing of this is very important, as the center-man curls toward the left-winger approximately 6 feet away; he will continue skating out of the zone, calling for the puck.
The left-winger, once receiving the pass from our defenseman, will immediately pass the puck to the centre-man. This can be done either by receiving the pass and passing the puck or, as the puck is being passed to our left-winger, he can try to one touch pass it to the centre-man.
Once the left-winger passes the puck he, he immediately starts skating up his left lane through the neutral zone with the centre-man
Our right-winger needs to know that this breakout play is happening on the left-wing side, he needs to observe that the puck is going to the left-winger. Once he sees the puck going to the left-winger, the right-winger needs to accelerate up his right wing boards.
Goalies in