"You can teach defence" vs "You can't teach offence"

[Three On Zero]

At the profession level, it’s easier to teach players defensively good habits than it is offensive habits. You’ll see far more players become more defensively responsible than you will see players explode offensively

 

[Tralfamadore]

You can teach a monkey to play offense or defense. What limits players at the NHL level is the speed of the game. Tyson Barrie would be Nick Lidstrom in my beer league.

 

[LemonSauceD]

You can teach mostly anything but all depends if the player is dumb or not. You can’t teach dumb people, or rather you can teach them albeit in a limited fashion.

Another thing is effort. You also can’t teach effort, at least in an ethical way. If I held a gun to my players head and told them to play hard, I mean yeah they’ll probably look like one of the best players on the ice, or they f***ing die.

 

[SwedishFire]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a load of crap? "You can teach defence" is often thrown out there as simply a given, but is it even accurate?

Guys like Barrie, Klingberg, Gostisbehere, Shattenkirk, etc as a few examples have been some of the higher end offensive dmen over the last decade, but you can't rely on any of them to play consistent top 4 minutes at even-strength.

Do they lack the tools to play defence? I don't think so - the skating and vision that helps them excel offensively should in theory also help defensively. They're not all small (eg Klingberg is 6'3), plus there are some pretty good defensive guys on the smaller side (eg Fox, Spurgeon, etc). Yet after 5-10 years in the league, really not much progression on the defensive end.

On my own team, Rielly is a good example. He produces enough offensively to be consider an elite #1 dman, but he simply plateaued defensively early in his career and never improved. He's not a black hole defensively and can play in your top 4, but he also can't carry a pairing defensively. If he had progressed even moderately, I think he'd be considered a legit #1 dman / Norris contender, but as is, he isn't.

On the flip side, "you can't teach offence" also doesn't seem particularly accurate. Plenty of players were drafted with a certain amount of offensive upside, and then blew past that later in their careers (eg Lucic, Hyman, Verhaeghe, Marchand, etc).

Anyway, I'm mostly bringing this up because it seems pretty applicable to both the draft and heavy trade season, as you'll often hear other fans of your team brush aside your concerns about a player's defensive play because that can "obviously just be taught." And while sure, similar to how there are players who improve and exceed expectations offensively, you will see that on the defensive side of the puck as well, I'm just not convinced that those improvements are occuring at particularly different rates.

Defense is more and more about playing sense to know/feel/sense whats about to happen, and where players and the puck is going. So it has switched to you cant teach offense(about yakupov) to actually - you really cant teach great defense. It takes so much now adays to be a great defender since the level of reffing has got lower. You dont get away with much, and you get called out for litterary checking your guy a bit harder, or just shadowing him. A complete 360 sinve the 90s with how much you could hook and interfer and hold a plyer in the 90s to today - now you cant interfer with the stick at all.

Teach a plter to be better at shooting, placement, stickhandling and passing - and you are a offensive threat in NHL. To be a good defensive player you need some years under the belt.

 

[Phil McKraken]

If anyone here thinks offense and defense are comparable in difficulty you're wrong, plain and simple. Offense is about getting the puck to a specific place - like 1% of the game space - while defense is about keeping it anywhere else.

 

[Pavels Dog]

At the profession level, it’s easier to teach players defensively good habits than it is offensive habits. You’ll see far more players become more defensively responsible than you will see players explode offensively

That really just comes down to how much easier it is to get away with being bad or inconsistent offensively than it is to get away with it defensively.

If a d-man stops 9 out of 10 one-on-one situations against a forward in a game, but the 10th time that forward gets past and scores - most likely the forward is viewed as having had a great game and the d-man shows up in a negative way on highlight reels.

Players become "defensive responsible" because there's a certain treshold of defensive play required to even stick in the NHL. So it becomes self-fulfilling in a way, the players who were unable to learn defense just didn't make or stick in the NHL.

It's still extremely rare to see a player go from being bad defensively to "exploding" into being an elite or even great defensive player. It happens, but not more often than it does for forwards.

 

[YippieKaey]

All players in the NHL have been taught high-level defense and offense since they were like 5. It's just when comparing to the other 300 best players in the world it seems like some are bad it. They're not. There's just others in the league that sre even better

 

[SwedishFire]

If anyone here thinks offense and defense are comparable in difficulty you're wrong, plain and simple. Offense is about getting the puck to a specific place - like 1% of the game space - while defense is about keeping it anywhere else.

Defense is about keept the puck to your linemates, and be aware of where players will be, and safe zones to pass the puck. It takes a bit more. If youre just throwing the puck away, well thats a give away.

 

[Junohockeyfan]

You can teach situational awareness which benefits defensive play moreso than offensive play. You can teach skills (skating, puck skills etc.) which aids offense. But elite offense is generally instinctual. You have it or you don't. Some might say the same about elite defense but its more common with offense.

 

[dukeofjive]

You can teach mechanics about being on the offense or defensive play.

You cant teach talent, work ethics and a will to win at all cost.

 

[BagHead]

It is BS if you take it at face value. You absolutely can teach offense, and you absolutely can teach defense. Some guys have better natural ability at one than the other, but they didn't start out by scoring 50 goals in the NHL, or being an elite shutdown defender.

The only reason the saying exists is because there's a kernel of truth to it. Defense is easier to learn than offense, because elite offense requires individual skills that require lots of time and effort to develop, where defense requires awareness of the opposing offense's scheme and your own defensive scheme. From there, just make sure the puck hits you or your stick.

 

[Phil McKraken]

Defense is about keept the puck to your linemates, and be aware of where players will be, and safe zones to pass the puck. It takes a bit more. If youre just throwing the puck away, well thats a give away.

You're saying defense can be played with varying degrees of effectiveness, but the same obviously applies to offense. The fact remains that the goal is to keep the puck anywhere but in the net, which is many times easier than putting it to the net.

 

[Statto]

At the profession level, it’s easier to teach players defensively good habits than it is offensive habits. You’ll see far more players become more defensively responsible than you will see players explode offensively

System constraints tend to be defensive focus, so forwards can rely on skill,and creativity but then they have to play with defensive responsibility. The forwards that can score and not be a defensive liability are the rarer commodity. Playing forward is about instinct, unpredictability and creativity. All of that is outside of the system and most importantly shows up on the scroreboard . Whereas for D it’s primarily playing the system perfectly and then providing offence. We seriously overvalue scoring from D who don’t do the defensive bit well.

I don’t think one is easier or more difficult they are just different, with different responsibilities and expectations.

 

[Lshap]

If anyone here thinks offense and defense are comparable in difficulty you're wrong, plain and simple. Offense is about getting the puck to a specific place - like 1% of the game space - while defense is about keeping it anywhere else.

True.

Offence is creative – players have to create scoring chances out of nothing.

On the other hand, defence is all about disrupting offence. Defence exists purely as a reaction to what the other team is doing.

It's easier to teach players to disrupt something than to create it from scratch.

 

[Brownies]

I would say that for most offensive players what is hard is to learn to be more responsible without losing what got you into the league in the first place. If they lose all of their edge, a coach might prefer someone else already built for the rougher game.

 

[TGWL]

You can teach offense. You can teach defense. But you can't teach IQ/Vision/creativity.

You need to understand that these players grew up playing hockey, and in bantam, juniors, etc, they were probably allowed a bigger leash to play to their skillset without being given different roles, spending years to just focus on positioning and being a two-way, or defensive defender. You come into the NHL and you have practices and training camp, then during the season your practices get less and less, and you start focusing on the coaches structure. It's very hard to come into the NHL and then have coaches work on your defensive game without putting you in a role where defense first is your focus, and mistakes are ignored.

 

[Satanphonehome]

If you can't teach offence, why is nearly every NHL player better offensively in year 3 or 4 than they are at the start of their careers?

If you can't teach offence, explain Tage Thompson.
Indeed, explain the Buffalo Sabres from Ralph Krueger to Don Granato.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Because defense is all about effort and positioning, which "anyone" can learn. Offense requires much more god-given IQ and fast-twitch muscles, which is hard to teach.

 

[Xerloris]

Offense is more about creativity while defense is more x's and o's.

 

[North Cole]

There's never going to be enough of a control sample to prove this one way or the other. No one develops at the same rate and changes in situation/usage have a big effect on both production and defensive output. Vegas took some cast off players and they turned into pretty good offensive players, is that because a new franchise has much better development skills than anyone else? Or because average offensive players getting above average PP and 5v5 time allowed them to better produce? Similarly, sheltering a player will make him show up better defensively, though defense is significantly harder to measure because its the absence of offense, rather than a measurable stat in it's own right.

How much of a players defensive/offensive skill is taught vs how much is a function of moving up the depth chart and simply learning from playing against better players? There's no defensive practice substitute for being able to play against Connor McDavid until you actually just play against Connor McDavid and the same is true for the top 50 forwards in the league. It's not football or baseball where you can just watch tape and drill into players memory - in X formation we need to do Y.

 

[DJJones]

Flames drafting Poirier is a good example. By all accounts the guy is elite at offense and was a borderline liability defensively. They figured they could teach him to be passable defensively. If he can even get to average he'll be a #2 or #3 if he hits his potential. Seems like it's coming along okay.

Kuznetsov on the otherhand was drafted before Poirier but as a defensive defensemen. His offense seems to have stagnated and potential is now probably a #4 at its peak.

So Kuznetsov was seen as a better player at the draft but the home run potential for Poirier is there and that's what wins games.

 

[SEALBound]

Plenty of less offensively skilled guys have carved out a career being good defensively / PK'ing.

Defense is structural, offense is instinctual.

 

[Windy River]

It makes sense because sound defense is largely about reading of the play and positioning, which is far more ‘teachable’ than slick hands and a deadly shot.

 

[Peltz]

To be honest you can't teach dumb people anything and many hockey players are dumb. It's no surprise that top 5-10 prospects always end up winning scholastic awards in the CHL or NCAA. You also see elite players who were known for their adaptability rather than pure skill like sakic, yzerman, st. Louis, etc becoming good management types.

Athletes being dumb is a stereotype because they focus almost exclusively on their craft rather than scholastics. The vast majority of them are not incapable of learning and most of them are much more knowledgable about their sport than people you'd deem "smart" based on your view.

The fact is, it's insanely difficult to defend NHL caliber players just like it's insanely hard to score against them. Some are able to do one of these a bit better than the other. But these are the most elite athletes in the world and the difference of which ones do something better than other NHL players is the slimmest of margins.

These players would 100% smoke of every pro player both offensively and defensively without even breaking a sweat. Your post vastly underestimates just how much they've learned to even sniff the NHL level.

They're already the worlds smartest and most well-rounded hockey players before they enter the league dude.

All players in the NHL have been taught high-level defense and offense since they were like 5. It's just when comparing to the other 300 best players in the world it seems like some are bad it. They're not. There's just others in the league that sre even better

Pretty much this. We're talking the absolute greatest players on the planet that already push the envelop of what's possible on skates to even sniff the NHL. Getting them to be even more elite in a particular part of the game is just very hard to do at that level.

 

[abo9]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a load of crap? "You can teach defence" is often thrown out there as simply a given, but is it even accurate?

Guys like Barrie, Klingberg, Gostisbehere, Shattenkirk, etc as a few examples have been some of the higher end offensive dmen over the last decade, but you can't rely on any of them to play consistent top 4 minutes at even-strength.

Do they lack the tools to play defence? I don't think so - the skating and vision that helps them excel offensively should in theory also help defensively. They're not all small (eg Klingberg is 6'3), plus there are some pretty good defensive guys on the smaller side (eg Fox, Spurgeon, etc). Yet after 5-10 years in the league, really not much progression on the defensive end.

On my own team, Rielly is a good example. He produces enough offensively to be consider an elite #1 dman, but he simply plateaued defensively early in his career and never improved. He's not a black hole defensively and can play in your top 4, but he also can't carry a pairing defensively. If he had progressed even moderately, I think he'd be considered a legit #1 dman / Norris contender, but as is, he isn't.

On the flip side, "you can't teach offence" also doesn't seem particularly accurate. Plenty of players were drafted with a certain amount of offensive upside, and then blew past that later in their careers (eg Lucic, Hyman, Verhaeghe, Marchand, etc).

Anyway, I'm mostly bringing this up because it seems pretty applicable to both the draft and heavy trade season, as you'll often hear other fans of your team brush aside your concerns about a player's defensive play because that can "obviously just be taught." And while sure, similar to how there are players who improve and exceed expectations offensively, you will see that on the defensive side of the puck as well, I'm just not convinced that those improvements are occuring at particularly different rates.

Yeah it's a load of BS. Similar to "you can't teach a player to shoot".

Some guys just naturally love to shoot and will practice that skill for hours on end - obviously they'll get better at it. Some might naturally be better at transferring their weight, or aiming, etc. But why couldn't you teach those skills to someone?

Hockey sense is another big one rumoured not to be "teachable", but come on. Here's a few tips to improve lower level player's "hockey sense" and "offense":

- When making a pass, pass a few feet in front of a player, don't aim for their stick because they likely won't be there when the puck reaches it.
- In the defensive zone, don't pass the puck in front of the net
- Your passes and shots will go in the direction you look at
- Don't go towards traffic. Look for empty spots on the ice and go there (valid with and without the puck in an offensive situation).
- On a 2 on 1 situation, defensively, play the pass
- If you suck, go park in front of the net, something good might happen.
- Stick on the ice


Now, some of those are extremely obvious to anyone who played the game. At the level of the NHL, the tips become much more nuanced and detail-orientated, but they're still teachable concepts and players can practice them.