An offensive push occurs when a few players on a team do a hard drive towards (or into) the opposing goal. An offensive push will be most effective when the team has more players engaged than the opponents. For this reason, it is extremely difficult for a single player to carry out a successful offensive push. Individual players can start an offensive push, but will very quickly need support from teammates to continue it. It is very effective if at least two players see and start a strong offensive push at once, because then there is no delay for support to arrive for the player with the puck.
There is no limit to how many players engage in an offensive push, it can be all six players down pushing. Although, teams must keep in mind that if all six players are down for a push, all six will have to surface at roughly the same time. So, having all six players down is a great way to score a goal, because then everyone has a chance to come up and breathe after that. Other times in the game though, teams may wish to leave one or two players on the surface that can come down once the players driving forward have to surface.
Demo video coming soon!
There are several situations that can lead to a strong offensive push, here are a few examples:
Two on ones (pinches): If two players see an opportunity to pinch an opponent, they can use that pinch as a hard offensive drive.
Swings: Starting a swing can feel like it is not an offensive push because it goes sideways, but swings often result in hard drives into space that can give a team much forward advancement as well. The best way to make a swing more of an offensive push is to end the swing with a pinch on the outside player of the opposing team.
Forward flicks: If a back flicks the puck past an opponent to a forward, this can leave the forward with a lot of space to swim towards the goal.
There are many more situations that can lead to offensive pushes, and how these set up is also dependent on the formation being played. It is most important to be aware of what your teammates are doing and set up to support them as best you can.
Players should be careful starting hard drives without any support from teammates. If a player drives forward on their own, it only takes two defenders for the defenders have the better odds. If two players start the drive, it takes three defenders to have the better odds, which is half of the defending team! Numbers are the key to successful offensive pushes.
In this example, the white team (in yellow) transitions from defense to offense with a forward pass. The forward then sees that there is a lot of space ahead of her and starts a drive. As she swims, three more of her teammates dive down to help with the push. Only two players on the black team drop to stop this drive, and it is not enough. The white team gets the puck all the way to the end wall because four of their players saw that they were starting an offensive push and came down to support it.
OFFENSIVE PUSH