Box + 1 Defensive Zone Concepts

 Box + 1 Defensive Zone Concepts

The Box + 1 is a common zonal structure that teams use across all levels of hockey. It's simple, versatile, and effective. It's much maligned as a "conservative" approach used by old dinosaur coaches, but let's dissect it and see if that's the case.

What is a Box + 1 anyway?

The defense is named for the shape its players take up most of the time. They don't need to be exactly in formation, but more often than not, you'll see the defensemen and wingers forming a box and the center sitting in the middle.

It's a tried-and-true system that works well for players who prefer to go around their opponents just as much as for players who prefer to go through them, as long as they are willing to be positionally disciplined.

Why use a box + 1?

1. Outnumber the opposition in the low areas

The offense will almost always keep two players high in the zone. They want to protect against the counterattack, hold the blue line, and be an outlet to re-set the offense. Aggressive teams will let a defenseman join the offense and not force a forward to fill in, leaving just one player high. Even so, if the defense brings back all 5 players, they outnumber the offense. That gives the defense more flexibility- there is more slack if a defender gets beaten (on or off the puck), there are extra players to bring pressure, and there is more coverage to restrict the puck carrier's options.

Even with one defenseman activated, the defense still has a 5v4 advantage low

2. Focus defense on key areas of the ice

Instead of wasting energy chasing around attackers at the point or on the weak side of the ice, this structure focuses on defending the three most vital spaces in the zone: the puck, the front of the net, and the path from the puck to the front of the net, called the shooting lane. 

The shooting lane is decidedly clogged

Newbies assume that to defend a player, you must be on them. That's not true, and it can lead to you getting severely burned. In the Box + 1, wingers need to stay low. If they drift too high, it opens up space behind them. They defend a low-value shot from the point, but give up a high-value shot in the slot. If they stay low, they can defend the point shot by blocking it, and they can defend more dangerous shots from the circles.

Look at all that space. Anybody can score from there

Winger stays low. The point shot is not getting through, and there's no gaps in coverage

3. Be prepared for the counterattack

The box+1 is a system which sees its players standing relatively still. That means that when players get the puck, they know exactly where their teammates will be, and everybody will have lots of energy. That's a deadly combination for the other team to defend, and it's relatively easy to spring a 2-on-1 or a 3-on-2 rush out of a blocked shot or a hit.

The Moving Box

The Platonic ideal of a box + 1 concept. The wingers and defensemen form a box, and the center sits in the middle. Plus one. Most defensive schemes rely really heavily on their center, but this one gives the pivot a pretty easy job. The center's sole job is to puck up any players who cut inside of the box. If two players get to the middle at the same time, the center takes the more dangerous one and leaves the other to a teammate (usually the weak-side defenseman).

Pressure comes when the defense notices a mistake- the puck carrier turns their back or looks down at the puck, a pass is bobbled or slow, a stick breaks. Then, the entire box shifts over. Instead of applying direct pressure, the defense surrounds the puck carrier. If the puck is behind the goal, the defensemen and center surround it. If it's at the half wall, the strong-side defenseman, strong-side winger, and center pressure. By engulfing the puck carrier inside the box instead of sending someone after it, the structure is maintained. Notably, the center still takes away the middle.

Puck carrier gets caught with his head down, and now it's a 3v1 at the puck. Notice the numerical advantage below the top of the circles: only 2 Avalanche players are low, while all 5 Flyers players are low.

Czech Press

This is a fun concept that sits somewhere between a collapsed defense and a pressure defense. The Czech Press starts in a box, and the nearest player to the puck attacks the puck carrier aggressively. The center then fills in their corner of the box. This lets the box control the high-value real estate in the slot while taking time and space away from the puck carrier.

Right Defenseman attacking out of the Box + 1 and into a Czech Press

This system lets excellent on-puck defenders shine. If you have a particular defenseman who can steal pucks in the corner or a winger who can win possession on the half-wall, you can have your other players funnel the puck to their corner of the zone so they can make big plays.

If your Right Wing is a big hitter, you may want to funnel the puck into the right halfwall

The concept can also be used to cherry pick instead of press- if one of your wingers sees a chance to counter, they can jump into space and the center can fill in.

If the winger reads that the puck is about to get stolen, they can get a head start on the breakout. If the puck doesn't end up getting stolen, no big deal- the box is still in place, and when the winger gets back the team can apply more pressure.

An added benefit of the Czech Press is that it works no matter how many players you have. It works as a 5v5 defense, but also on the PK (triangle instead of box), at 4v4, and even at 3v3 (line instead of triangle). A team can have a consistent identity all game, which makes things a lot easier on the players.

Shadowing

In basketball, they would call this sort of scheme a "junk" defense, a hybrid of man-to-man and zone concepts. Instead of defending the center of the zone, the center is assigned to play another player (often the opposing center) man-to-man. Obviously this is something you use to shut down an opposing star or against a particularly shallow team that relies heavily on one player. 

It's one of the earliest variants of the traditional 3-2 positional defense. Players like Eddie Shack and Claude Provost made entire careers out of being good at shadowing. In Shack's case, he played wing, and they would have the center fill his corner (not unlike the Czech Press or a Center-High defense) and he would shadow an opposing winger. Provost played the position straight, covering opposing centers. It worked extremely well back then- Provost won nine Stanley Cups and Shack won four.

The center stays between their "check" and the puck

If a winger is shadowing, they follow everywhere on the ice. A left winger would shadow even to the right wing.

This Box + 1 variant fell out of style mostly because it relies so heavily on that one defender. It demands so much energy and focus that a player doing that job is unlikely to be able to contribute on offense, and a player who can skate well enough to keep up with the fastest and shiftiest opponents is someone who could score goals if their energy is directed that way. If you have the kind of players on your team for it- say all of your centers are very defensive and all of your wingers are very offensive, it is the only man-to-man-adjacent defense that I personally think is good. We'll cover that another day.

Thinking Inside the Box

Central to the Box + 1 system is the idea that there are always layers of defenders between the puck and the goal. No player defends alone. In order to hold that structure, players need to stay tight to their positions. This is particularly true of the wingers- in other schemes, they will be encouraged to charge out to the point or float about freely waiting for a chance to make a big play, but in the Box + 1, they are constrained low in the zone. For every player, positional discipline is more important than defensive toolkit. It's a big part of why coaches tend to be dogmatic about it- if they can get their players to play the box + 1 properly, they can be confident in knowing they will execute the rest of their gameplan faithfully too.

There are two ways where Box + 1 concepts are particularly weak:

They give up possession. By collapsing on the middle of the zone, the offense faces significantly less puck pressure. The puck carrier has time and space to thread passes. The opposition can cycle long enough to line change, leaving the defense at an energy disadvantage. Also, on a long enough time scale, a defender will eventually make a mistake, and it only takes one defender slipping up to create an opening worth shooting into.

Like all zone defenses, it's vulnerable to being "flooded." Just as the defense can create a numerical advantage by ignoring the point, the offense can do the same by ignoring the weak side of the zone. When the defense is outnumbered, it has to triage, and it can effectively cover the most dangerous attackers. But at some point on the ice, two defenders will have to defend three attackers, or one defender will have to defend two attackers. The 3v2 is preferable (50% advantage instead of 100%), so smart defenders will hedge to help their teammates, but things happen quickly on the ice. A quick cut from two players at the same time can catch the defense flat footed and create high-value shots.