The PP doesn't suck because of coaching. It sucks because this team doesn't have the talent to ice 2 units. We have 2 legit top six players on the team currently (who are both elite 1st liners) and one real offensive d-man (Goligoski) who is really doing the best he can on both sides of the ice but isn't the best quarterback. He should be the guy firing off shots with a legit PPQB or QB'ing a second unit. Chiasson and Nichushkin are 3rd line players at this point. Guys like Eakin, Roussel, and Garbutt are effective grinders that can score garbage goals but are more suited on a 3rd pp unit that gets thrown out there every now and then. Daley doesn't have the offensive awareness to be a PP threat and never will. K-Conn is green and his offense has never translated from juniors anyway. Whitney, Cole, Horcoff, and Gonchar are all washed up. When you are putting out guys like that its because your depth is garbage.
Oh and you can't really scratch these guys either. Who are you going to replace them with? Jeffery? Mueller? Rome? The options available are all worse than what we have and lack playoff experience.
Also we really need to give Goligoski and Daley a break here and some credit. This **** they are being tasked with is unbelievable and it is out of necessity because this d-core is so shallow. It was shallow with Dillon healthy and its awful now. They are being asked to play half a game because we have maybe 4 semi-reliable NHL quality d-men right now, one of which has played 10 games at the NHL level. Goligoski shouldn't be playing 30 minutes a game but there just isn't anyone else. Its insane but it is what it is. Nill needs to keep these two and add to them in the offseason. I understand its frustrating but they aren't the problem they are a symptom of this d-core being so shallow. Gonchar needs to go though. He is only going to continue to decline next season and having him here is only going to drag down the kid that is tasked to play with him or block someone's development. You think you are pissed at Goligoski now? Wait until Klingberg/Oleksiak is rocking the AHL next season and isn't being called up because Gonchar is here to be Nichushkin's security blanket.
I disagree, look at how this team scores the vast majority of its goals. On the rush, so why slow down and set up instead of going hard at the net on entries as often as possible.
Ok so we stop and set up, the biggest problem we then have is we can't stop hitting out own guys up front and keeping the puck in the zone. Once we get set up, we typically go into this two guys at the net two on the mid wall one D up high. Maybe this is the entire problem it means both points by design are open on the boards, unless the D can get to it in time, but then the other side is wide open. Maybe sending two guys + two defenders to the net isnt the best of ideas. Sure sometimes it works, but I don't think it works often.
You know what I want to see, I want to just start treating the PP like a normal shift, if your line is hot you get to play. No more odd 4 forward looks. Just run the lines as you had them configured all game, if the work during 5vs5 you have to figure it might work 5vs4. Mainly because our PP specialists in Gonchar and Whitney (not good PP specialist) dont look very effective at all most of the time on the PP. Oh and it would be nice to see Connauton get some minutes on the PP opposite Goligoski on the shooting side. Maybe next year?