One of Therrien's primary responsibilities on the staff will be to coach the power play. This is an area that requires a reboot, as the club almost inexplicably finished at just 17.1 percent (tied for 21st in the NHL least season) after finishing in the 20 percent vicinity (19.5 or above, with a 23.4 percent high-water mark in 2014-15) in five of the previous seasons. The Flyers' 2018-19 power play numbers were their lowest since 2010-11.
"I have my own vision on the power play. We've already talked about it with AV. We need to raise the standard. My responsibility to have the confidence to have success. I'll talk to the players and get their vision, too," Therrien said.
Last season, the Flyers tried to get the stalled power play going via a wide array of tweaks; some subtle, some major with shifts in both personnel and alignment. One major change was to move all lefthanders to the left side and all righthanders to the right, which included relocating Giroux from his longtime "office" on the left half-boards over the right side and
Jakub Voracek from his customary spot of moving up and down the right side, the point down to the bottom of the circle.
“Different teams have different power play systems. You can have success with everyone on their natural side or some guys on their off-side; it depends. That's something we will discuss in more detail as we have our meetings and get ready for camp. In general, I think if players are comfortable and confident, that's how you should go," Therrien said.
"One thing for me with the power play, I believe in being aggressive around the net. Get pucks and bodies to the net. Everywhere I've coached, that's been important in our success. There are different ways to do that with how you set up and move the puck, but you want the pucks in that [high-danger] area."
The Flyers power play issues last season had nothing to do with "too much predictability." Former assistant coach Kris Knoblauch, in conjunction with then-associate head coach Scott Gordon tried many different things to spark the man advantage apart from trying alignment switch-ups.
Generally last season, the Flyers (like the majority of teams in today's NHL) featured four forwards and one defenseman (most commonly
Shayne Gostisbehere) on their top power play unit. However, for a little while, the team even experimented with a five-forward power play. On the second unit, the Flyers sometimes went with four forwards and one defenseman (most commonly
Ivan Provorov) in an umbrella formation similar to the first unit and sometimes a more old-school arrangement with two defensemen (Provorov and
Travis Sanheim) at the points.
What can Flyers fans expect from a Therrien-coached power play?
"I think, as long as you have a defenseman who can do it, it's usually good these days to have one defenseman and four forwards on the units. Most likely, we will have that on both units but we will see. Gostisbehere has been good at that most of his career. You need to have two good units. We have other defensemen who can do it, beyond Gostisbehere. Provorov and Sanheim have potential to do it.
Matt Niskanen has played some power play over the years, too. So we have options and competition," Therrien said.
