One of the reasons the PP was so bad is coaching and player deployment. The talent on the team was not great, and they probably were always going to be bottom 3rd, but they have enough talent to be better than they were. TK, Frost, Brink, Tippett, Couts, Foester, York -- they've all have history of being good power play producers (admittedly some in the NHL and some in lower leagues).
Their problem was where they were under the directive to shoot from outside the high danger areas. They would put Tippett on the half wall, they would put Frost on the left side (as a left handed shooter) and his only play was circle back and shoot from the half wall. They didn't try at all to get the puck into the middle. This is by design. Torts was asked about the PP troubles and his response was that the team needed to get bodies in front for screens and hopefully a puck would bounce off of those players -- they were actively designing the powerplay to take shots from distance while also limiting their players chances to get the puck to the middle of the ice.
This has been two years in a row, and they have brought back the exact same coaching staff going into this season as they did with last season. They need to drastically change their approach if they want to see improved power play success.
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