My systems have to:
1) Put offence first! It is our responsibility as coaches to foster as much offensive ability in our players and help them to find ways to score more goals. Offence is fun!
2) Be simple! Systems should be easy to teach, easy to remember and use unambiguous and nested language to
3) Encourage full speed play. For example, a forechecking system that has players stop and wait for the breakout works against team speed.
4) Facilitate skill development. Having the first forechecker in hard on the puck carrier develops forechecking skills like angling, maintaining the defensive side, stick on puck, etc. Standing still at the blue line waiting for the breakout to come to you simply doesn’t develop the same skills.
5) Develop hockey sense. We want to put systems into play that empower players to make decisions on the fly.