Sam Reinhart: The Importance of Layering Inside the Offensive Zone

The consistency of Florida last night when it came to generating high danger chances and the ability to attack the net with precision allowed them to garner momentum in spurts. While Florida went through ups and downs throughout the game, their ability to layer inside the offensive zone and have their forwards involved in layers allowed them to be so effective in many ways. With Sam Reinhart, he was by far one of the most effective forwards in this game when it came to positional habits and the ability to layer inside the zone.

In his overtime goal scored just over a minute into the first overtime last night, which tied the series at two a piece, Reinhart showed a nifty ability in his way around the offensive zone that led to his goal. Him being in the bumper role on the power play makes his role exponentially more important, because it comes along with a lot of change of sides on possession. Along with that, there's a lot of adaptability needed, a lot of body positioning needed to open pass lanes, and a lot of constant movement to stay between checks and disrupt the penalty kill's positioning.

Reinhart is very swift when it comes to these multiple things, which factors into how he is able to layer offensively and be agile in the bumper role. We see in the sequence here how Reinhart is constantly adjusting his body orientation, facing the high point when the puck is up high, and tending to face more towards the net when the puck gets worked down low.

Right away on this sequence, once Reinhart moves this puck low-high on the half wall, and then a D-to-D pass occurs instantly, Reinhart layers and stays between his checks in that bumper role. Off-puck, he moves towards the slot to try and open up a pass lane for Tkachuk on the (now) far side half wall, where Tkachuk moves this puck back to the point. Reinhart widens his stance, making him more agile and taking up more space, and angles his body to Montour at the point to potentially open a pass lane there. Notice how Reinhart is using the space to his leverage to still maintain ways to open pass lanes for his teammates, and at the same time continue to adapt his body positioning on the fly.

Montour quickly moves this puck to a wide open Aleksander Barkov down low, with nobody covering him and NYR's box out of position, and feeds Reinhart into the slot. Reinhart wires it home off a terrific one-time shot and power generated through putting one knee on the ice, and this ends the game with a win for Florida.

The details that went into this play, again very subtle, but very noticeable in how Reinhart was able to layer inside the offensive zone and create a multitude of options for his teammates. Obviously, every pass option is not going to open up right away, but the ability of Reinhart to scan constantly, adapt, and open passing lanes allowed Florida to continue to have layers to their power play sequence here. If we didn't see that sort of activity from Reinhart in the bumper, it would've been much easier for the Rangers to cover given that Reinhart wouldn't be much of a threat.

It also helps that Reinhart is a dual threat player, who can generate volume with his shot as well as he does passing, so there's added flexibility in how he can generate offense in that bumper role. While those dual-threat abilities are certainly great to see from Reinhart, the most noticeable thing was definitely his instincts leading up to this goal here.

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