The Puck Rim Is The Lazy Play
Many hockey minds have a disdain for rimmed pucks when breaking the puck out of the defensive zone. They’re seen as a lazy play made by a player who really doesn’t care much about the pass receiver.
These rimmed pucks are some of the most difficult pucks to corral and restrict players from being able to smoothly make the next play. Put another way, a rimmed puck is basically the hockey equivalent of kicking the can (puck?) down the road.
Catching rims almost always requires a stop before being able to make the next play. It’s almost impossible to transition to an attack puck and often simply turns into a possession play under any type of pressure.
Rims often end up just clogging up play and being a win for the forechecking opposition. The only scenario where a win can happen is a bump/chip play made to a supporting center or slashing weakside winger, but these are low-percentage plays that often lead to turnovers.
Breakout Research
Rims have been researched as part of forecheck/breakout research from Ryan Stimson and team.
#1 - Rims are the worst at leading to possession breakouts and 2nd it leading to a turnover.
#2 - Rims result in a high number of shots against per breakout. Rims lead to the lowest shots for per breakout.
On the flipside, Stimson’s research found that the rate of over and reverse plays could explain about 70% of possession breakouts.
Offensive Rims
While there are some nice set play rims off faceoffs (e.g. DZ faceoff rim out to speed), most positive rim passes are actually in the offensive zone. The rim release is great offensive concept.
We’ll save that for another day.
Further Reading
Modern defensemen are scoring more, how are players like Zach Werenski doing it?
Having an asset is not enough. It’s about how players use their assets!
Given 98%+ of the game is played without the puck, off-the-puck roles are crucial
Player development is about understanding the relationship between athlete hardware and software