Controlling an opponent’s stick is an extremely useful and underutilized tactic in ice hockey.
There are (at least!) five great ways to manipulate an opponent’s stick in order to create time & space for yourself and your teammates:
Stick lift
Stick trap
Drive through
Pre-touch knock
Stick swat
Stick Lift
Lifting an opponent’s stick off the ice
While everyone is aware of a stick lift to steal the puck off an opponent, we should be thinking about lifting sticks to allow puck to arrive in our space. Here is a great example from John Tavares.
Players can even do a stick lift as part of their 1v1 move. Claude Giroux gives us a great example of defeating a defender’s weak one-handed poke check attempt.
Stick Trap
Clamping down to trap an opponent’s stick
Connor Brown does a great job clamping down and gaining inside stick positioning.
Tavares uses a stick trap to keep a passing lane open.
Kevin Labanc passes the puck outside, drives the middle lane, and uses a stick trap to eliminate the defender’s stick threat.
Drive Through
Driving through underneath an opponent’s stick
John Marino (Defensemen) drives through an opponent’s stick and even knocks it out of their hands.
Leon Draisatail hooks then drives through the defender’s stick.
Pre-Touch Knock
Knocking an opponent’s stick before touching the puck
Sidney Crosby is great at this too. Here he does a quick stick lift as a pass is on its way to him.
Charlie Coyle knocks his opponent’s stick toward the rafters and gains a clean puck touch.
As defenders continue to utilize tactics to close the gap between them and their checks, NHL development coaches are keying on offensive stick checks as a tactic. Below, we see the Montreal Canadiens (check out former HockeyIQ podcast guest Adam Nicholas, the team’s Director of Hockey Development) and Kirby Dach working on this in practice.
Stick Swat
Swatting an opponent’s stick while in possession of the puck
Tyler Toffoli does an excellent job leaving the puck and swatting away the defender’s stick before winning a 1v1.
Controlling Space
What did we miss? If you have any great clips to share, please send them along or share with us on social media.
Further Reading
Challenging players with inverted rushes (Opposite of odd-person rushes)
Players should be working to build transferable/translatable skills
Your goalie dropped his stick, what should you do? I wouldn’t give them your stick