Best way to start offense is with attack-mode defense

The Coaches Room is a weekly column by one of four former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Jim Corsi, David Marcoux, Paul MacLean and Joe Mullen will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, Corsi, the former goaltending coach of the Buffalo Sabres and St. Louis Blues, looks at how offense starts off a defensive-zone face-off win.

In my three previous installments, I wrote about offense and how it is being generated in the NHL today. Sticking with that theme, this week my focus is on how teams are generating offense out of the defensive end, basically turning defense into offense by abandoning the controlled breakout for a faster, puck-pursuit transition game that is sending the attack right down the opposition's throat.
The key is defending with an attack mode. It starts with the defensive-zone face-off, because the biggest part of defending now is getting control of the puck.
Ray Bennett, an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche, mentioned to me recently that the defensive-zone face-off has become critical to long-range offensive planning, because a face-off win in the D zone now allows you to almost instantaneously set up your offense from roughly 180 feet from the net.
Why is that? In the so-called new NHL, a much faster league than the one I grew up around both as a player and a coach, teams are using a swarm defense, which generates a lot of congestion around the puck but free space away from it. What we're seeing now is teams that win the defensive-zone face-off are getting the puck up the ice quickly by putting it into space and skating onto it.
They are getting it out of the D zone, away from their net, out of danger quickly.
There are different strategies involved, but the key is nobody is standing still. There is movement all over the ice to win the face-off.
Two players will drive into the area to win help the center win the face-off. Meanwhile, the weakside wing will drive through the middle and bust out the zone, pushing the defenseman at the blue line back. He's the push-the-pace player.
Once the puck is won, the center curls low and slow, and depending on how deep the defensemen are pinching in, the other wing either comes down low or goes up high as the team wraps the puck around and plays it at the blue line. He's there to chip it beyond the defender, behind him, putting the push-the-pace player into a foot race with speed. And now you're out of the zone.

Another way to do it is win the face-off with one guy down low, sending two guys out of the zone. The defenseman gets the puck and just lofts it out of the zone. It's again a foot race through the neutral zone. The point is, there are so many guys leaving the zone and the D is just tossing the puck up, creating a foot race with the forwards attacking it with speed.
I remember Scotty Bowman coaching that when I was in school. The Montreal Canadiens were practicing at our arena and they were going D to D in the defensive zone and then throwing pucks in the air with forwards going to chase them. We're all going, "What is that?"
A smart coach. That's what.
What we also see is teams win the face-off and immediately send the puck up the glass on the strong side. Again, it leads to a foot race. Get the puck, fire it hard up the glass, and off you go.
A little tidbit: Randy Carlyle, in his first stint as coach of the Anaheim Ducks, would put his hand on the glass before the face-off. That was the signal for the wing to blow the zone and the defenseman to put the puck hard off the glass out of the zone.
Here you'd have teams trying to set up their forecheck after losing the face-off, but Carlyle's plan was to negate that by making them scramble back instead.
In addition, sometimes what you'll see is the defenseman in front of the net get the puck and he'll lead the rush. That's not off the face-off win, it's off a scrum. He's an outlet player now.
None of this looks all that controlled, but it's very scripted. That's an important distinction.
Another key is that teams are starting these plays with their third- or fourth-line forwards winning the defensive-zone face-offs. They do the dirty work of getting the puck into the offensive zone, and then you've got your top lines going over the boards to either play offense or get another face-off in the offensive zone.
Why is this an important distinction to note in today's game? Speed. The game today is all about speed. The good teams are operating quickly and with an attacking purpose.
The more traditional play, i.e. the slower play, would be the center wins the D-zone draw, the wing goes down low to the hash marks, you go D to D to the forward standing still. But if he's standing still, he's a target. He's done.

The game is faster now, so you must react faster. Your decisions must be immediate.
Either way, though, it's rare to even have the chance for a controlled breakout. Watch a game tonight and tell me how many times there is a setup behind the net at even strength, 5-on-5. Usually the only time it happens is when the team is making a line change.
Teams are so good at defending set breakouts that they basically dare you to come at them when they do. The key is to stay moving and keep up the speed. Now you've got them on the run.
Everybody is doing this now because it's how you have to play, but the teams that do it particularly well are the teams that have the best mobile D. This is just another reason why it's so important to have mobile D. If you don't have it, you're struggling.
Speed grills. You get burned by it.