Wayne Gretzky: 2nd Wave of Pressure
Something a little different today, I decided to go back a bit further and delve deeper into the old style of play when Wayne Gretzky scored his 875th career goal. Gretzky, obviously the NHL’s best player we’ve ever seen thus far, showcased his skill more in timing and routes more than anything else. No, he wasn’t the flashiest skater and wasn’t flashy in how he moved, but he was flashy with his hockey sense and his awareness to be able to make plays both on and off the puck.
Gretzky was far above elite in his era when it came to processing speed, understanding space, and manipulative 1v1 play. What I see is a lot of reminiscence with Sidney Crosby with Gretzky in today’s game, in large part because they may not be the quickest, but they are way mentally faster than other players in the game.
Crosby has elite processing speed, adaptability, manipulative 1v1 maneuvers, elite offense, and elite overall ability with not being the flashiest of skaters in the league, and Gretzky very similar in that sense.
With Gretzky on his goal that he scored against the Devils at this time, he did a really great job both 1v1 and alongside the boards of evading pressure by leveraging his body first. As opposed to moving his feet first, he’d move his upper/lower body first to find out where he wanted to go next to create space.
Now, obviously I wasn’t old enough to watch Gretzky so I don’t fully understand the tactical nuances of his game compared to Crosby, Ovechkin, McDavid, and etc in today’s era, the highlights on his goals and assists show how well he could maneuver in small areas and do it with efficiency.
Gretzky Goal
Look on this goal how Gretzky does a great job along the board side battle, and then eventually passing off the wall to get to space on the interior. When Brian Leetch activates down the weak side and attacks the net as the first layer of pressure, with Gretzky being the 2nd here. Gretzky attacks as the 2nd layer, and crashes the net on the near side of the post and scores by tapping the puck in.
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