The word from the professionals on the game's X's and O's

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Paul Maurice of the Hurricanes is the NHL's most tenured head coach, having been with the Carolina franchise since 1995.

Dejan Kovacevic asked him Wednesday at Mellon Arena to share his views on when it is best to carry the puck into the attacking zone and when to dump it in.

The biggest factor is the speed that you have.

The situations you see in the neutral zone are predominantly three-on-three, so your best chance of being able to make something happen at the blue line without dumping it in is to carry it past somebody with speed. Even there, you have to be careful. Did the other team give you a big enough gap? If they didn't, are you going to be able to cut across without losing the puck or getting knocked off it? It's not easy.

The other challenge you face is that the alignment of the three guys you're facing is different now.

It used to be that one of the guys on the side was a forward. The two defensemen would stick together and the forward would go to the side. You could exploit that two ways: One was to go down the side and attack the forward by going wide on him. The other was to go right to the middle because it's unnatural for a defenseman to play in the middle of the ice.

Now, only Detroit is playing that way. Every other team, including ours and Pittsburgh, makes sure the defense is spread out with the forward in the middle.

If you see that, and you see nothing poor about the formation, you had better dump it in.

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