What Powerplay Units Would You Prefer to See

[BleedBlue14]

Not a secret our power play generally is atrocious. I get that this is jumping the gun a bit, but especially after last nights game I really don't see much of a benefit of having 91 with all of the guns on the PP unit. It seems like the rest of the team has a shockingly high tendency to defer to him and not play hockey or move whatsoever when he has the puck.

The real question is what units do you guys think would be the most beneficial to fixing whatever the hell this thing is when the other team forgets to send a 5th guy onto the ice and instead he sits in the box?

What I would like to see when 91 comes back.

PP1:

Steen - Schenn - Schwartz
Dunn - Pietro

PP2:
Berglund - Brodz - Tank
Parayko - Eddy

Thought process behind PP1:
It worked last night. People were moving we weren't sitting around holding the puck waiting for a defender to clear the lanes. We actually looked like a functional unit most of the time. Dunn is a more than capable PPQB. Steen is willing to play the net front. Schenn and Schwartz...together.

PP2:
Look it's not ideal to have Sobotka or Berglund on the powerplay to be honest with you. Brodz adds a RH shot forward to a PP unit but honestly he's more ideal there in order to gain possession on faceoffs. Berglund can play the front of the net, and although I generally cannot bring myself to admit it, he can at times put the puck in the net. This unit more or less allows Tank to QB the PP as I feel Eddy has shown this year a tendency to jump in the play and score a few goals. This also kind of helps with Tanks tendency to float to the top of the zone anyways. Parayko is there because he has a hammer of a shot.

Anyways, let me know what you guys would like to see. Also I understand that this may be jumping the gun a bit as a result of last night actually being able to score twice on a powerplay. The main emphasis of this is that I don't really think Tarasenko is that much of an asset on the power play with other skilled players.

Click to read more...

 

[BlueDream]

I like those.

I always thought Edmundson should get more PP time than he does. He has a pretty good shot and he can't be any worse than some of the players we've thrown out there.

 

[Dbrownss]

I like those, Dunn can actually shoot a 1 timer for PP1, and it was obvious last night. You could use Schenn in the slot and as another 1 timer option. Petro is good enough on the half wall to distribute the puck.

PP2, parayko and Tarasenko are your 2 main threats. Vladi has always been good at opening up east/west lanes. You just have to tell Parayko he has to shoot it every time(a good pass)

 

[Brian39]

I personally like putting Petro on the left side and Dunn on the right for PPs. I'm a big proponent of having the points play their 'off' side on a PP because it makes a one timer so much easier. Even if they don't actually release the one timer that often, it forces other teams to stay honest in their kill.

 

[simon IC]

I wonder if we should try Shoshnikov on the 2nd unit instead of Berglund? Not a lot of finesse there, but he could create traffic in front. Might be worth a try?

 

[BleedBlue14]

I like those, Dunn can actually shoot a 1 timer for PP1, and it was obvious last night. You could use Schenn in the slot and as another 1 timer option. Petro is good enough on the half wall to distribute the puck.

PP2, parayko and Tarasenko are your 2 main threats. Vladi has always been good at opening up east/west lanes. You just have to tell Parayko he has to shoot it every time(a good pass)

Yupp that was my thought process. Around the second unit. Tarasenko generally holds on to the puck anyways when he gets its mid to low. Having Parayko as an option up front as a trigger man seems pretty ideal to me. Also with Tanks tendency to want to come up high, I don't mind Eddy around the net, he's been pretty good at finding soft spots in the defense this year.

 

[BleedBlue14]

I personally like putting Petro on the left side and Dunn on the right for PPs. I'm a big proponent of having the points play their 'off' side on a PP because it makes a one timer so much easier. Even if they don't actually release the one timer that often, it forces other teams to stay honest in their kill.

I do as well, I just don't know the general opinion of it. I mean look at how te Preds have ran their d pairings on PPs. It seems like one of them generally is always open for a bomb, and that group has some guys that are good at it.

 

[Robb_K]

They look good to me. More or less what I had in mind other than Brodziak. But, with Stastny gone, there is no one else, as Berglund should play in front of the net, and "the new Sobotka" is not much help. With the current roster, the 2nd unit is a problem.

 

[542365]

I like your units. My only concern is how is unit 2 ever going to enter the zone? Schenn, Schwartz, Dunn, and sometimes Petro seem like the only guys who can ever enter the zone cleanly. Tarasenko for whatever reason has really struggled getting cleanly into the offensive zone on the PP this year. He either tries to force a pass through a guy's skate, or he doesn't carry any speed and ends up just getting wedged off the puck. Brodziak could hunt down on the dump and chase, but nobody else on that unit really plays that style of game either though.

Regardless what we do with personnel, we need to have some one timer options. All of our shots get blocked because nobody is willing to take a one timer it seems(outside of Thompson who I don't think has gotten a one timer through to the net all season though). I would like to see more work below the goal line on our PP. Too often we're content with taking shots from the blue line or maybe the top of the circle if we're aggressive(mostly Tarasenko here). I'd like to see Schwartz below the goal line with the option to either play it out to the point or quickly pass it to Schenn in the slot for a 1T. Our PP is slow and predictable, and as such extremely easy to defend against. We have the personnel to have a decent PP(at least average), but there is no pace and we cannot enter the zone cleanly for our life. It really needs a lot of work.

EDIT:

This is what I'm thinking of on the opposite side of the ice because Schenn is a lefty. Quick puck movement leading to a shot. We never seem to do anything like this.

 

[MissouriMook]

...Quick puck movement leading to a shot. We never seem to do anything like this.

This is one of the things I despised about Hitch's philosophies. His teams always paused with the puck at the point to set up screens, but by that time the goalie has been able to square himself to where the puck is coming from, even if he is having difficulty seeing it, and the shot blockers have been able to line up as well.

I MUCH prefer the strategy of getting the goalie's eyes and body moving so you can move the puck laterally to get a quick shot off while he is still out of position. I've noticed Yeo's scheme using a bumper in the mid-slot on occasion recently, and this works down low, too, like in the video you added.

I would just like to see us use simple, crisp "pass, pass, shoot" set plays more liberally since the things we've been doing all season haven't seemed to work. They can be very simple to execute as long as you have skilled (and confident) players in the right places on the ice. These simple plays, when executed with pace, often get the defenders (bodies and sticks) out of position, not just the goalie. It would certainly be important for skills development to improve our one-timers as a team in order to make this work more effectively. We have a pretty short list of guys who do this well. I would say Dunn is probably at or near the top of that list, which is one reason why I would like to see him out there on PP1 much more often.

 

[Bluesguru]

Dunn running the PP up top in an Umbrella format with Parayko as a trigger man on the left dot. Tarasenko on the right dot with Schenn and Schwartz handling responsibilities down low.
But first and foremost, Dunn needs to run the PP up top period.

Sidenote, I think Schmaltz would be great on the PP but the kids on the 5 year plan with the Blues.

 

[The Note in MI]

Thomas Tavares Tarasenko
Dunn Pietrangelo

Fabbri Schenn Schwartz
Trade for wing Parayko

 

[shpongle falls]

I like the units when Vladdy was out and Dunn and Petro were just firing pucks with Steen as the net front, seemed to work really well. I haven't got to watch the last few games very much so I'm not sure what they're doing currently.

 

[Evocable Manager]

I like the units when Vladdy was out and Dunn and Petro were just firing pucks with Steen as the net front, seemed to work really well. I haven't got to watch the last few games very much so I'm not sure what they're doing currently.

The problem is they don't either