Three D lineup could add dimension
For a guy who identifies the peak of his on-ice career as a stint as the sixth-worst player on his Montreal high school hockey team, Jack Han has put together an impressive enough NHL resumé.
Now age 31, he’s already worked for both of Canada’s heritage NHL franchises, most recently wrapping up a three-season stint working for the Maple Leafs as an assistant coach for the AHL Marlies. Before that, he was a writer for the Montreal Canadiens’ website who occasionally caught a lift on the team’s charter jet. And since he parted ways with the Leafs organization earlier this year, after new Marlies head coach Greg Moore revamped the staff, Han has been one of the more productive writers in the game. Along with releasing a flagship book — “Hockey Tactics 2020,” edited by Hall of Fame hockey writer Michael Farber — he’s added a couple of other titles to his catalogue, including “Chel Guide,” an exploration of how players can use an NHL video game to improve at actual hockey.
But no matter where Han goes from here, a case can be made that he’ll never grow as famous as he’s already been in a more unlikely sphere: Chinese reality TV. Han, who was born in China and moved to Canada at age six, is the only child of parents who, along with being successful computer engineers, have counted themselves as long-time fans of a popular Chinese dating show.
“My parents watched it for many years,” Han was saying this past week, over the phone from Montreal. “I told them at some point I’ll go on that show just for kicks.”
In 2013, he made good on his promise by appearing on the show, whose title roughly translates to “If You Are the One.” If the premise is familiar — a man vying to find his “heartbeat girl” among a bevy of female options — its scope is hardly niche. Over a decadelong run, by some measures it’s been called the biggest non-news program in Chinese-language broadcasting. Some episodes have drawn in the range of 36 million viewers.
Han said that as he descended in a prop elevator en route to the stage for his talent-showcasing performance, he felt his legs shaking “uncontrollably.” In the end, he didn’t win the big prize, a tropical vacation with the dream partner, but he pulled it off.
Displaying his trilingual skills — he speaks Mandarin, English and French — he sang “Les Champs Élysées” in the language of love. Not bad for a McGill University marketing grad who describes himself as a “mediocre karaoke singer.”
“In a way it put me in the shoes of what an NHLer might feel like in some situations,” Han said. “You’re part of this entertainment product. And even though you are the focal point, you still don’t want to lose what you’re about … It was something I wanted to do, so I took a calculated gamble. And I think it’s paid off in the sense that I have an experience nobody’s able to take away from me.”
Given his recent experience behind the curtain in Leafland, it’s been intriguing to get his take on what we’ll see from the blue and white whenever the NHL next convenes. Among Han’s most compelling predictions is the notion that head coach Sheldon Keefe might, at some point, deploy an on-ice configuration that plays against convention.
In a recent edition of his Hockey Tactics Newsletter, Han discussed the potential merits of icing two forwards in front of three defencemen, as opposed to the typical allotment of three and two. Han is of the belief that Keefe, with whom Han worked on the Marlies, may be inclined to try such a strategy in the coming season.
“I haven’t talked to Sheldon (since writing about the concept) but I would say the likelihood is pretty high. I think you’ll see some of that,” he said.
Why? As Han pointed out, in some ways it’s an ancient concept.
There was a time in soccer, an older sport than hockey, when teams pushed the majority of their players toward the opposing net, playing with as many as seven strikers. But the notion that more players up front would lead to more scoring, while intuitive, didn’t necessarily produce better offence. As time went on, progressive coaches came to realize they were better off putting more players in the middle and the back of the attack to control play. Fast forward to recent history and there’ve been successful teams that have won without employing a pure striker, or with just one striker in their lineup. Han cites the book “Inverting the Pyramid” as a good bit of background to understand the evolution.
You can make the case the inversion of the pyramid has already come to hockey. The 2-3 configuration — two up and three back — is in some ways a staple in NHL games. When you hear teams talk about maintaining a “high F3” on the forecheck, that’s essentially a formation in which as many as two forwards press deep into the opponents’ zone while the third forward hangs closer to the blue line, not far from his two defencemen. In other words, the third forward isn’t technically a defenceman, but he plays a bit like one.
“Generally, if you have three players back nothing bad is going to happen on the rush,” Han said.
Which doesn’t mean Han is advocating for all hockey coaches to deploy two forwards and three defencemen (2F3D, for short).
“It’s logical why most teams don’t go 2F3D. It’s because there’s not enough good, mobile, skilled, imaginative defencemen — or backs — available to fill those spots,” Han said. “You’re always going to leave talent on the table if you dress more defencemen than forwards, because growing up the best players play forward, generally speaking.”
Still, there’s another force at work here: Forwards are expensive. You may have heard the Leafs have half their salary cap tied up in four. Defencemen are relatively cheaper. And the Leafs happen to have what Han considers a promising cache of modestly paid blueliners with the skating ability and hockey sense to make a 2-3 configuration work. At the top of that list reside Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren and Mac Hollowell; Han considers the latter “an extremely underrated prospect.”
Plus, the Leafs have been using forward pairs — Auston Matthews-William Nylander and John Tavares-Mitch Marner, or vice versa, with assorted wingers tacked on — for a few years now.
“They’re heavy up top, and they have a lot of Ds who are OK but need a little help. It’s a configuration that can help them,” he said. “It’s a way to find cap efficiency. It’s also a way to maximize your talent and insulate some of the weaknesses these talents have.”
Han acknowledges it’s not likely to be rolled out across the lineup, but he offered a possibility. Instead of a traditional third pairing on defence, he posited, why not dress seven defencemen and use a third trio that would improve bottom-of-the-lineup defensive play? Instead of a traditional fourth line up front, why not a fourth pair?
“Why not roll out Liljegren, Hollowell and Sandin at the back and then maybe (Joe) Thornton and an Alex Kerfoot or a Jimmy Vesey up front?” he said. “It’s four or five minutes of ice time where very little generally happens out there. It minimizes the chances of a defensive breakdown, but also the nature of these players means you’re actually going to be able to create some plays, too. So you might actually win those four or five minutes.”
It sounds like an idea worth considering from a thinker who clearly doesn’t lack the confidence to tweak an age-old template or two. Then again, if Han sees the oft-copycat business of hockey tactics as a personal carte blanche, perhaps some of his self-assurance stems from those 15 minutes of reality-TV fame in the world’s most populous country.
“After having that experience, I find that I don’t easily get rattled,” he said, “because deep inside me I know that I will never be in front of 19 million people, or whatever it was. I could be in front of 20,000 people now and, for me, that’s only a fraction of the pressure that I have been under. So for me, it’s no big deal.”