Break out

A breakout occurs when a team gains possession of the puck in its own defensive end and works to move out of its own zone to start an attack. There are two basic kinds of breakouts — a team will execute the first type when the opponent is forechecking deep, putting pressure on the puck, and the second when the opponent has decided to fall back to the neutral zone or make a line change — and there are several different plays for each. Each member of the team with the puck must know what their teammates are going to do, so they can move the puck quickly up the ice.

There are a few absolute rules of breakouts, no matter the particular play you’re executing:

1. Never pass the puck across the face of the goal. Bad things can happen when the puck gets in front of goal. An opponent can intercept it and get off a shot, or even a bad deflection could end up in the back of the net.
2. Forwards should not skate away from the puck. Although your impulse may be to get down the ice, your first move should be toward your own goal, so you can get into position for a pass.
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3. Be ready to change on the fly. The play that has been called can be blown up in an instant by pressure from the other team, and you need to be aware and make on-the-fly changes to help your teammates. Just because a specific play was called or has started doesn’t mean all will go according to plan.

Although hockey is based on the individual skills of the players — skating, stickhandling, checking, and the like — the breakout is an example of a situation when the players on the ice must work together as a unit. A well-executed breakout is a thing of beauty, as one player pings the puck to the next to get it forward and put the opposing team back on its heels. When everything works like clockwork, the time from holding the puck behind your own goal to one of the forwards getting a shot can be under ten seconds. But this happens only after hours of practice and when every player is doing their part.