Line Combos: Don’t Touch PP1. It’s Good. Very Good.

[mas0764]

They don't care about the PP actually improving. Or else they wouldn't suggest putting a left handed shot in Trocheck's spot.

True, I'm more concerned with the team getting better overall because it develops the offensive skills of it's kids, rather than trying to keep special teams numbers inflated. I want us to be a better hockey team that can win a Cup, not a better power play team.

It’s not even that the “keep it as is” argument is bad, it’s just that we have no basis for comparison. We’ve been trotting out the same 4 guys together for years now. It shouldn’t be sacrilege to say let’s see what another combo can do, especially given the amount of talent we have available.

And if types like Krieder or Panarin are that bothered by it, they’re welcomed to request a trade.

Especially when the current incarnation is ranked..... ~checks OP~ .... 15th.

 

[huerter]

True, I'm more concerned with the team getting better overall because it develops the offensive skills of it's kids, rather than trying to keep special teams numbers inflated. I want us to be a better hockey team that can win a Cup, not a better power play team.



Especially when the current incarnation is ranked..... ~checks OP~ .... 15th.

I want us to achieve transformative excellence so who's the one setting the bar low?

 

[egelband]

Still want the kids to get more pp time. Maybe they do just as well. At least give them some time when the rangers are leading.

 

[duhmetreE]

Goals scored per minutes on ice is an equation that works.

It's flawed.

now do everyone elses rate per a minute and you will see 28% isn't great.

Better teams will have astronomical numbers. Edmonton entire PP unit, not just the 1st unit, is converting 46% using your logic. Their 1st unit would be over 50%. 28% isn't good anymore.

I dont know what to tell you but it's not a good metric unless you have all other PP units converted values. You're comparing it to traditional PP% and that is not logical.

 

[will1066]

I kind of want to touch it.

 

[LOFIN]

I do find it funny (or sad rather I guess), how Gallant is willing to throw all of the lines into a blender after 1 bad period of hockey. But when the PP has sucked ass for multiple games he's just willing to let it "play out" because the guys are too good.

And like has been said, there would be options. Throwing Kakko there instead of Trochek is not the worst idea. It's not like we're replacing McDavid with a 3rd liner.

 

[duhmetreE]

I do find it funny (or sad rather I guess), how Gallant is willing to throw all of the lines into a blender after 1 bad period of hockey. But when the PP has sucked ass for multiple games he's just willing to let it "play out" because the guys are too good.

And like has been said, there would be options. Throwing Kakko there instead of Trochek is not the worst idea. It's not like we're replacing McDavid with a 3rd liner.

I find it funny that he's not even attempting to coach them. 'Let them figure it out'.....

Insert Office Space 'what exactly is it you say you do here?' < staring at the coaching staff >

Not coaching up the struggling kids. Not coaching the struggling PP. Why even have coaches?

 

[huerter]

I do find it funny (or sad rather I guess), how Gallant is willing to throw all of the lines into a blender after 1 bad period of hockey. But when the PP has sucked ass for multiple games he's just willing to let it "play out" because the guys are too good.

And like has been said, there would be options. Throwing Kakko there instead of Trochek is not the worst idea. It's not like we're replacing McDavid with a 3rd liner.

It's a worse idea than throwing Carpenter or Brodzinski in there.

"not the worst idea" is the cousin of "what's the worst that can happen". so tilting.

 

[Shesterkybomb]

The pp is mid in every sense of the word.

 

[Jaromir Jagr]

Gallant is horrendous at development. He was the wrong coach for this team, at this time. We made a run last year, sure, but it still needed to be a development year. That success completely masked what is still a necessary component of this team's needs.

KK and Chytil are looking better, but aren't having what I would call breakout seasons. Laf looks horrendous. Kravy situation is a disaster. There's no way on this earth you can convince me that all 4 of these guys are busts. Gallant is doing something wrong as is the organization and it starts with giving the kids extended looks.

KK was unreal on the top line to start the year, probably our most dominant forward game in game out, and then was demoted for like a quarter of the season. They get residual seconds on the pp and no unit is ever going to get shit done with 20 seconds until time expires.

It's absolutely awful to watch and it's going to hurt the franchise for a decade unless they get their shit together. The only bright side is it seem that perhaps there was a talk with Gallant about playing time for the kids when we were going through that awful stretch as there's been upticks in responsibility. But the PP is really a f***ing disaster zone for development. I can't wait till this POS is jettisoned.

 

[huerter]

Must be easy for a coach to keep Kakko on the top line because he deserves it and also make sure Laf is in the best situation for him which would be the Kid Line because it's the only line he shows a pulse. Cmon Gallant, just do that you POS.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

They get damn near full 2 minute PP shifts... they should be better than what they are.

 

[Leonardo87]

Wouldn‘t change the personnel but need to execute better. There is some bad luck but I think it’s also the execution. Last game they scored 2 PP goals, but one was really ES, and the other was a rush down the ice. There was no structure or a PP set up.

 

[Machinehead]

Oh and “fancy stats”? Yea those mean jack shit if the puck isnt going in the back of the net. Don’t worry guys, Mika and Panarin just missing the net 6 out of 7 times is still good, just “Unlucky” lol

That's like saying crossing the street blindfolded doesn't mean jack shit if you haven't been hit yet. It's predictive.

Trying to place limitations on how long luck can last is a fool's errand. It can last entire seasons.

A lot of people think Kreider is never going to come close to 52 goals again. If you understand that, then you understand that luck can last an entire season.

Seriously, I’m getting pushback that he’s been good but I just don’t see it, seems to get caved in a lot. Don’t know how to look up the stats so was hoping for some insight here.

He's bad but he's better than Hajek - a bar that just about doesn't exist. Schrodinger's bar.

 

[Kodiak]

This year's PP is not really that far off from last year's PP. They have scored 27 PP goals in 121 PP opportunities. In order to match last year's PP% of 25.2%, they would need 30.5 PP goals in the same number of PP opportunities. So the difference is 3-4 goals over 38 games, or 1 additional PP goal every 10-12 games.

They do need to shake it up a bit, but I don't think that changing personnel is the answer. The obvious choice to take off of PP1 is Trocheck, but he is currently second on the team with 8 PP goals, so I don't see how that would help. The biggest underperformer on the PP this year has been Kreider, who has 4 PP goals whereas he had 12 at this point last year. He hasn't been able to get the pass from Zibanejad to work, and his short side tip in play hasn't been working either. But who would you replace him with? You would be hard-pressed to find a better net front player.

 

[will1066]

This year's PP is not really that far off from last year's PP. They have scored 27 PP goals in 121 PP opportunities. In order to match last year's PP% of 25.2%, they would need 30.5 PP goals in the same number of PP opportunities. So the difference is 3-4 goals over 38 games, or 1 additional PP goal every 10-12 games.

They do need to shake it up a bit, but I don't think that changing personnel is the answer. The obvious choice to take off of PP1 is Trocheck, but he is currently second on the team with 8 PP goals, so I don't see how that would help. The biggest underperformer on the PP this year has been Kreider, who has 4 PP goals whereas he had 12 at this point last year. He hasn't been able to get the pass from Zibanejad to work, and his short side tip in play hasn't been working either. But who would you replace him with? You would be hard-pressed to find a better net front player.

Teams across the league watch video and prepare how to defend them. Therefore, they must make adjustments themselves. This is all obvious, I know, but they continue to use the same playbook. Sometimes, Zibanejad just gets all of it on his shot and there's nothing the other team can do to stop a goal, but lately the execution has been off, with passes and feeds that are off the mark or go into skates, etc. And all of them have like 3 total moves individually. For example, Kreider is 1) deflect 2) touch pass to Zib or 3) spin-around fade-away after taking the pass.

 

[Larrybiv]

They don't care about the PP actually improving. Or else they wouldn't suggest putting a left handed shot in Trocheck's spot.

Nobody should really be "nitpicking" about Trocheck on the PP1 unit. He is usually strong on the puck and in corner (imo), sees the ice as well as anyone and what is developing. The more important issue is Trouba, they really should TAX FOXY for that whole 2 minutes and then I'd bet anything the kids would produce at a MUCH higher rate then what they have in a clueless Trouba. If they won't then certainly KAM is a better option. I can't believe that GG doesn't want to do this. He sees what KAM could do. Trust him. Cant be worse, can it?

 

[Machinehead]

I kind of want to touch it.

Hot.

 

[kovazub94]

It’s ridiculous how a thread with two strong posts at the start quickly deteriorated into the usual crying and moaning about kids not developing and Gallant sucks…

 

[kovazub94]

Teams across the league watch video and prepare how to defend them. Therefore, they must make adjustments themselves. This is all obvious, I know, but they continue to use the same playbook. Sometimes, Zibanejad just gets all of it on his shot and there's nothing the other team can do to stop a goal, but lately the execution has been off, with passes and feeds that are off the mark or go into skates, etc. And all of them have like 3 total moves individually. For example, Kreider is 1) deflect 2) touch pass to Zib or 3) spin-around fade-away after taking the pass.

This is where I’d also be open to maybe giving an opportunity to Kakko or Chytil - Kreider hasn’t been effective recently - and obviously a far cry from last season - in his front of the net spot (in terms of blocking goalies eyes or creating deflections and shot redirections).

 

[Kodiak]

Teams across the league watch video and prepare how to defend them. Therefore, they must make adjustments themselves. This is all obvious, I know, but they continue to use the same playbook. Sometimes, Zibanejad just gets all of it on his shot and there's nothing the other team can do to stop a goal, but lately the execution has been off, with passes and feeds that are off the mark or go into skates, etc. And all of them have like 3 total moves individually. For example, Kreider is 1) deflect 2) touch pass to Zib or 3) spin-around fade-away after taking the pass.

Some amount of predictability is inevitable, and it's not necessarily bad. With Ovechkin, for example, everyone knew what he was going to do on the PP and he still managed to score. The rest of the unit needs to have enough unpredictability around that key player to keep the PK honest, and that's where we are lacking right now. But like you said, the passes are not crisp right now, and that makes it harder to be unpredictable because you can't move the puck quickly. You default to settling the puck down and resetting the play.

But even with everyone knowing that Zibanejad is our #1 PP weapon, he is still scoring much more than he has in the past. He's currently 4th in the league in PP goals with 11, and his previous career high was 15. He is very close to Kreider's PP goal pace from last year.

Kreider's 4 PP goals, on the other hand, is just not getting it done. I wouldn't expect him to repeat last year's 26 PP goals, but I would expect around 15. Right now, he's not scoring the dirty deflection and rebound goals, he's not getting the backdoor feed from Zibanejad, and he can't get the short side deflection play with Panarin or Fox to work. The short side play is so hard to defend against, but Kreider keeps deflecting it behind the net.

 

[will1066]

Some amount of predictability is inevitable, and it's not necessarily bad. With Ovechkin, for example, everyone knew what he was going to do on the PP and he still managed to score. The rest of the unit needs to have enough unpredictability around that key player to keep the PK honest, and that's where we are lacking right now. But like you said, the passes are not crisp right now, and that makes it harder to be unpredictable because you can't move the puck quickly. You default to settling the puck down and resetting the play.

But even with everyone knowing that Zibanejad is our #1 PP weapon, he is still scoring much more than he has in the past. He's currently 4th in the league in PP goals with 11, and his previous career high was 15. He is very close to Kreider's PP goal pace from last year.

Kreider's 4 PP goals, on the other hand, is just not getting it done. I wouldn't expect him to repeat last year's 26 PP goals, but I would expect around 15. Right now, he's not scoring the dirty deflection and rebound goals, he's not getting the backdoor feed from Zibanejad, and he can't get the short side deflection play with Panarin or Fox to work. The short side play is so hard to defend against, but Kreider keeps deflecting it behind the net.

Very simple way to ramp up the unpredictability is for Fox to start slinging the puck toward the net, instead of holding it and going deep for the now-predictable royal road play. It also would get others to start moving more instead of staying in their designated spots.

What separates Zibanejad from Ovechkin is that the latter rotates in and out of his left circle spot if he has to. Ovechkin has more than the left-circle one-timer in his arsenal; he can get you in many other ways. Zibanejad 1) shoots off the pass or 2) touch passes to Kreider for the backdoor play, and that's when he isn't forced out of his left-circle spot by Panarin who's moving in from the right side.

 

[SA16]

The unit is not predictable. Zibanejad is the number one play but they get shots from everyone. The Rangers are nowhere close to the team most reliant on setting up the one timer. His percent of the units shots is not out of line with other teams and is lower than many.

If we look at forwards with 100+ mins at 5v4 this year all of Caufield, Ovechkin, Pastrnak, Robertson, Forsberg, MacKinnon, Thompson, Fiala, Kane, Meier, Connor, Stamkos, Kaprizov, Perron, and Matthews have a higher percent of their teams shot attempts when on the PP. If the Rangers PP is predictable because they try to feed Zibanejad as much as possible then so is at least half the PPs in the league.

Visual chart for reference as well:

 

[Raspewtin]

Teams across the league watch video and prepare how to defend them. Therefore, they must make adjustments themselves. This is all obvious, I know, but they continue to use the same playbook. Sometimes, Zibanejad just gets all of it on his shot and there's nothing the other team can do to stop a goal, but lately the execution has been off, with passes and feeds that are off the mark or go into skates, etc. And all of them have like 3 total moves individually. For example, Kreider is 1) deflect 2) touch pass to Zib or 3) spin-around fade-away after taking the pass.

they have made adjustments. Fox and Panarin's shots are way up from previous years on the PP. Trochek gives them an additional threat in the slot that Strome didn't, where he played more of a decoy role. Kreider isn't really getting the tips lately but I'd say that's the only thing we haven't really had an answer for.

 

[smoneil]

Even if we take the assumption from the first two posts as fact (that the 1st unit, despite not actually being a top unit this year, has just been "unlucky"), there's still a flaw in the logic.

First, looking at the E/S production of the players on this team, we HAVE the horses to build two very good PP units (Fox/Miller/and I would add Schneider in there on the defense, and then Zib, Chytil Trocheck, Laf, Kakko, Bread, Kreider, and Kravtsov for the forwards). Right now, we have the "golden unit" that plays ~85% of each PP, and the "afterthought unit" with the leftover pieces, no plan, and no time to establish anything.

That works in the regular season. Things regress to the norm over the span of 82 games. A PP can be "unlucky" over ~40 games and still end up as one of the better PP units in the league by the end of the year. But in a playoff series? What happens when unit 1 goes cold in the ECF? You have no real second unit. If your top unit goes cold, you're shit out of luck.

To add to that, we skated some of our top guys into the ground last year. I legit wonder how much of the lack of ES scoring for our top six players is connected to them playing ALL of the PP and the PK. Ease their load and see if that gives them a bit of a spring in their ES steps.

If it's a game 7 and there's a PP where we NEED a goal late in the 3rd, sure. Put the "all star unit" in the same basket. But for long term success? We need two more balanced units. And that's not even getting to the likely confidence boost the kids would get from adding in some PP production rather than being stapled to the bench in any game with more than a couple of penalties.