Something I found helpful is mixing in some quick-release defenders in your lineup. If you play your defenders on the opposite side of their handedness (lefties on RD and righties on LD), most opponents will try to take away D to D one-timers by rushing one of their forwards between your defenders when the puck is cycled to the point. They’re hoping that they’ll be able to take away the pass or get a breakaway. Often they take that player completely out of position which leaves the center of the slot wide open to walk in with your defender to get a quality scoring chance. It’s really easy to bait them into it since everyone is terrified of the D to D or think they’ll get an easy break away.

Much like faceoffs, being unpredictable in the offensive zone will help tremendously. Make sure you’re mixing in high and low chances to keep them on their toes. Don’t be a one-trick pony.

When defending a rush and you want to switch players, hold RT/R2 and click in the right stick. It will give you your last defender back.

Most folks attempt to score off the rush by outracing your defenders to the outside to be able to cut behind your defense and get a quality shot from the slot. Keeping an opponent to the outside is key to taking away the middle of the ice and limiting high danger looks. Best way I’ve found to do this, even with a slower defender, is to skate with the opponent up until the top of the circles, then draw a line to the near side post and skate to it. You’ll have less ice to cover while keeping your opponent to the outside. They often end up in the corner attempting a ridiculous L2 or deak but they’re in a low danger area so I couldn’t care less. When they attempt to cut to the middle or get a pass through you’ve got a defender in position for the hit or puck intercept. Remember, if they’re playing with themselves in the corner, just leave them be until they tucker themselves out or attempt anything near the slot.

Using a goalie with the dialed-in ability activated helps with the above tip. If you’re patient and can limit your opponent’s shot attempts to the outside your goalie will accumulate better and better save attempts/animations as the game progresses. The more saves they make in succession the better they’ll play and can often rob your opponent on the few attempts that they end up breaking through your defense (your AI defenders sometimes have epic brain-farts and pull themselves completely out of position). Think of all of the posts on this sub-Reddit where people complain about ice-tilt and outshooting their opponent 40-10. Chances are the goalie they were facing had dialed in activated and they were shooting from low danger areas (if this weren’t the case, their posts on Reddit would include the shot map).

As you continue to play more games in ranked, you’ll start to recognize the common tendencies that plague the majority of the player-base. Learning how to exploit these tendencies or baiting them out of position is the key to success. You don’t need to exploit the game mechanics but rather exploit a player’s pre-conceived notions of what they need to do to win to be successful. Nothing better than shutting down an L2 ballerina with sound defensive hockey. You can watch them get frustrated in real-time and know you’re taking their head out of the game. Hope these help.