To me a PK has three or four parts to it. First is the forecheck, which we seem atrocious except for Burmistrov. The purpose of the forecheck is to:
- Gain the puck from the carrier. Very hard to do when they outnumber us.
- Slow down the power play team through the neutral zone
- Force them to dump the puck early, either creating an icing or giving our defenders extra time to retreive the puck.
The only forechecker that does all three regularly is Bumistrov. Antropov has the IQ to be the forechecker but not the speed. They both use angles and patience with the puck carrier. Glass and Ladd don't do this. They always "swing" early when the puck carrier is waiting behind their net. This triggers the breakout, you want to delay the breakout not trigger it. Make small circles in front of the net, and try to force the carrier to come out on his back hand. We have also gone from a 1+3 forecheck to a 1+1+2 forecheck with mixed results.
The second phase is after the puck has crossed the blue line but the opposing team hasn't established coverage. We seem half decent at this, probably our strongest point. Some of our units seem to be too defensive at this point. With the puck carrier against a wall, we need to send two guys against the wall at the same time. Sometimes we only have one or just collapse back and let them gain the zone clean.
The third phase is the opposing team has gained the zone with control. We have actually made improvements on this. We're moving our sticks more. But coverage needs to improve. We also need to be more aggressive when the puck is against the boards like above. Send two guys, but make sure the weak side winger is in the correct position. Often he moves too far over leaving the weak side wide open.
Another area that needs to improve is tip-ins. I think Tampa Bay had three last game. Whenever a player moves across the net he needs to be tracked by the defender. There's no point in having the defender just stand there when he's not fighting off a player. He needs to tie up the stick, wether it's on the ground or in the air. This automatically reduces tip-ins.
Although the stats say otherwise, they have made fundamental improvements to the PK.