Protesting the 1-3-1

In case you haven’t heard about this, the Tampa Bay Lightning play a 1-3-1 neutral zone trap system. As you can see in the picture it has one forward up with three players lined up in the neutral zone and one defenseman back in their own zone. Their plan is to draw the opposing team by not pressuring them and trapping them in the neutral zone. So, they basically sit still and not pressure until the opposing team skates forward.

So, last night the Philadelphia Flyers planned to attack this 1-3-1 trap by……not skating up ice with the puck. Instead, they sat in their own zone with the puck just skating in circles or back and forth with the puck. Now, yes I am a Flyers fan as well as a Ducks fan, but I feel like this needs to be brought to the attention of the entire league because the way the Tampa Bay Lightning play the game with this trap is not the way the game is supposed to be played.

When watching the Versus broadcast of the game last night, Mike Milbury and Pierre McGuire, while I’m not their biggest fans, said the right things when it comes to this 1-3-1 system. Lightning Coach Guy Boucher drew this up and it has been very successful for the Lightning but its just not how hockey should be played. I hope the teams use what the Flyers did last night as a springboard to a much larger kind of protest or strategy against the growing infamous 1-3-1 system of Guy Boucher.

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