I tried man on man a few times. I also saw my son play it in U18AAA for two years. Don't do it, it will drive you nuts when the 1 out of 5 on the ice don't get it and you get scored on a ton. If your Dmen follow a forward up to the point, you are going to get torched because forwards generally don't cover the front of the net.
Agreed, wouldn't do that either. What you could consider with a strong-skating and smart team, though, is a play man-on-man high. Gives you a chance to be aggressive and steal pucks at the blue line and generate odd-man rushes and breakaways without the full chaos that man-on-man can bring. Depends a bit on how good your opponents are, though, because if you're playing against a team that's constantly pinching their D, moving net-front guys up to the blue line and so on to draw your guys out of position, you'll end up with the same effect as playing pure man-on-man. And if you add too many safety measures to avoid that (e.g. D may follow to the blue line but should retreat asap once they're there if their check doesn't get the puck), then you'll need a super smart team too.
This is the only thing I'd kinda disagree with. If I had a really skilled, strong-skating team, I'd try to generate as much movement as possible and keep the puck out of the corners. Try to play 1-3-1 as much as possible, constantly move the puck low to high and high to low to attack both downhill and from behind the net. Never keep or cycle the puck in the corners, always try to bring it up to the half-boards asap and cycle high if possible.
Not knowing the personnel, I for sure concede you might be right. I coach elite u16 and we still have problems committing to moving the puck to the point. Not sure I have ever seen much of a 1-3-1 at 5 on 5 though. Can you elaborate on it a bit more. To me it seems that any turnover would lead to a potential 2v1?
Yeah for sure, it can be risky. But the way it usually works is that a forward carries the puck up the boards and the strong-side D slides to the middle while the weak-side D pinches, with one forward net-front and one as the bumper just like the PP 1-3-1. So the look you want is really just getting to the top with control and then attacking downhill by getting the puck from the strong-side forward to the weak-side D who then ideally has three or four passing options on his way down.
On the one hand, yes, it’s risky. But on the other hand, you can implement a bunch of safety measures and only actually execute the 1-3-1 when you get the right triggers.
