What Went Wrong, Part One: The Powerplay

great charts and stats…and while this fan like others will can come up with all kinds of reasons or logic of why & why not…but and again to this fan…what ever the coaching staff did and directed the apporpiate players to do obviously didn’t work…my hope for next season is for the coaching staff ( who ever they maybe) will not only look at what the canes did but several of the top tier teams from both the est & western conferences did and see how to either rebuild the PP or tweak it here & there as next seasons team will be as young as it was with several more new/newer faces and like a master sculpting from a fresh block of clay…can mold something that will be ever better than the last to seasons or maybe on par with the 05-06 season…after all what do we the fans have to lose by looking for something like that ?? thanks again Bob…we appreciate the energy and efforts

A friend of mine who played D1 hockey in college pointed something out to me when we went to a game during that miserable 0-33 PP streak.

“The forwards aren’t moving”

It was something so simple that I had failed to even think about, and the observation was correct, the defensemen were moving the puck while the forwards were parked in their positions, waiting for the blueliners to make a great pass or to pick up a juicy rebound.

The problem isn’t the players, as Sutter, LaRose (and I forget who else) finally broke the streak a week later, Sutter is a stud, but I think we can all agree that Rosie doesn’t exactly have soft hands, he’s a hustle player who scores dirty goals (something every team needs, and I hope he’s resigned, and never plays on the top line again) and his goal, a tip-in I beleive, was created by movement that got the defense out of position and created a shooting lane from the top of the circle (If my memory serves)

The problem is the system, Staal, Jussi, Ruutu and Skinner know how to move and make plays, but when they get stuck in a rut it’s the coach’s job to either light a fire under their rears or put in different players, and this staff did neither.

One thing your stats show is how Pitkanen isn’t as valuable as we’ve been led to believe. Is he a top-4 defenseman? Most definitely, but as we saw with Ian White, who had around a $3.5 million cap hit, this team can’t afford to shell out $4.5 million for a defensemen who disappears for weeks at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have Joni back, but not at a $4.5 million clip, maybe $3-4 million, but I doubt he’d be willing to take that kind of a pay cut (depends on what he’s offered on the open market, which typically overpays for everything) I could see a big market team throwing a lot of money at him, and I just hope that JR doesn’t sell the farm to keep him around.

It was a lot things that didn’t go right with the powerplay, but the number one thing that has to be changed for next year is how it’s coached, especially when things aren’t going well which is going happen. The Canes breakout didn’t really change the whole year, every now and then you’d see a tweak but for the most part it looked the same – Pitkanen up the middle. You can’t have a proficient powerplay if you can’t establish control once you enter the zone. Once the Canes established control which was very inconsistent they seemed to generate chances. Start special teams a week early in training camp and work on 3 different breakouts otherwise it’s too easy defend, the Canes have too many offensively gifted players to have such a poor powerplay.

10 more PP goals would have put us in the top 10 in the NHL and likely the playoffs.
The margin is so small between a good powerplay and one that needs improvement.

The frustrating part was our 5-3; Especially early in the season when we tried 5 forwards. I wanted to throw a brick through my TV set.

Thanks Bob for the stats. What I’ve enjoyed the most this post-season is watching the playoff teams work their respective power plays. Some have been horrendous (Pens, Bruins for sure), but most are pretty good looking whether they score or not. I didn’t realized that MOST teams don’t resort to the dump in, like we do. While we don’t have the skill set of Capitals or Chicago, the idea is the same. work the puck into the zone, set up, high low, and QUICK shots. These teams don’t hold the puck, think, then shoot (allowing goalie and defense to set up).

As Lavi used to yell: “ERIC, ONE TIMAH”.

i think hes a UFA after this season with the habs

OK, I think it’s established I’m not a Mo fan…. …So:

Our best three years were when Mo wasn’t coach. Lavi openend up the offensive game and let the offensive players show more creativity.

Players have in the past mentioned Mo stifles creativity or offensive flair, which would/could account for the forwards not moving but holding their places on the PP. Creativity—forcing the defense to move, getting them out of position opens lanes, creates uncovered shooters, and can get the goalie moving—increases scoring opportunities. We seemed to score more PP goals when our system broke down—because then we’re creating unknown chaos and taking advantage of it. But if it’s been coached asking for more movement, and the players don’t deliver, then it is up to the coach to change personnel—which was also almost never done. But at any rate i don’t think you can ask the players to rein in their offensive creativity during 5 on 5 but then expect them to display it on the PP.

System wise, we rarely had the goalie screened—that’s a blame combination of no big players on the Canes and/or the system not emphasizing it. When we did have it, we had more scoring success. Not sure why we let the goalies have good sight lines all the time.

But our two biggest problems were predictability (lack of allowing creativity) and not making the goalies job harder with screens or crease presence. We were too easy to defend and block.

For several years I had been talking to various people in the Canes organization or commentators about what I thought was an obvious gap in the makeup of the team. The Hurricanes didn’t have a person with the size, skill sets, and temperament to plan himself in front of the net and create total chaos. The power play has been the Achilles heel of the Hurricanes since 2005-2006.

   The Hurricanes also didn’t have a player who can take a puck through traffic, split defenders, and drill shots into the back of the net. Jeff Skinner will soon gain the size, strength, and explosive speed to be that guy. In addition to the absence of adequate net presence, as others have pointed out, the Hurricanes power play lacked creativity, movement, and confidence. The fact that no significant changes took place during streaks of 0-for-33 and 3-for-78 is really disappointing.

   I remain very optimistic that the maturation of Skinner, Boychuk, Dalpe, and Bowman will help the Hurricanes become more successful on the power play in terms of highly skilled offensive forwards. McBain will also improve on the power play. Faulk too will be a great help at some time; and the major question is when Faulk will be ready. Perhaps the 2011 draft will be the time the Hurricanes find their much-needed power forward.

I agree with many of the comments and certainly look for improvements in this vital stat in the coming year. The book on the Canes PP for the past couple of seasons seems to be to pressure the point and the puck very tightly to rush a pass and to disrupt the Canes’ ability to ever establish shooting lanes or chances. My novice observation is the Canes always seemed rushed and were easily knocked off the puck and that PK defenders from the opponents were told to take an extra step out toward the point. Also did you notice that the first defender was willing to go deep into the Canes zone to hassle the puck mover and was often able to disrupt the flow or steal the puck?

it looks as if we need (1) a good faceoff man to win some draws in the offensive zone on powerplays so we don’t have to worry about entering the zone and (2) some new creative ways/plays/coaching as to how to enter the zone and get movement once we do…

Bob, very good points – we need beef, we need to win the Power Play, but the other thing is that we need to set lines at the beginning of the season, and stick with them. Mo and Lavi are members of the “lineup a week” club, and I think that hurt our PP. By the last 2-3 weeks, we had 12-61-26 and 15-36-53 pretty much as the top two lines, and that helped, especially as the point men settled in.

What ever happened to the 16-59-21 line? It was successful a few times, then disappeared. And can Jeff Daniels get an all-star line on the PP going down there, and we use that in preseason here – if all 3 players stick, it would make an awesome 4th line/power play line as a 3rd choice.

It’s not used in hockey as much as it is in baseball or the NBA, but the Pythagorean formula attempts to estimate winning percentage based on goal differential. In that we managed to post a record above .500—.555, to be exact—despite a negative goal differential, we obviously bucked at least one trend in that regard. Still, here is the difference in our expected win percentage based on those six goals:

Unadjusted: .494
+6 goals: .506

Interestingly enough, that .012 gap in winning percentage was exactly the margin between us and the Rangers for the 8th seed.

was 9th in the league.

The Canes were 12th in goals and 22nd in goals against.

The defense needs to be upgraded.

well, we’ve got the net covered…then there’s a gap…then a couple of talented forwards. i wonder what the stats were this year on no. of shots the ’canes gave up on the powerplay and how that sits with the rest of the league. cam is our best defender on the PP, no doubt. On the offensive side, I know Staal took a lot of faceoffs this year, but i often saw him thrown out of the circle when on powerplays; i wonder what the stats were on his faceoff percentage on powerplays vs. 5-on-5? it just seemed like we lost A TON of faceoffs during powerplays, and then had trouble getting the puck back into the zone.