Absolutely. I'm also dumbfounded as to how different it looks from last season when you have the same PP coach and for the most part, the same personnel. The lack of skating compared to last season is astonishing.
That's part of it. There is too much standing around.
I also think part of it is not only how they use their point-men, in particular on "Unit 1", but how much time the puck spends close to the blue-line between Krug and Krejci.
It seemed like last year the puck spent more time on Spooner's stick being quarterbacked from the right-side half-wall more than the point. Spooner with the left-shot Eriksson off to the side of the net, could operate a mini-triangle between them and Bergeron.
The right-shot Backes being a right-shot and spending more time in front of and not just off to the side of the net, has effectively taken a easy option away from Spooner, thus the puck spends more time being worked back and forth between Krug and Krejci on the points.
I thought part of the beauty of last year's PP was they could suck in the defenders with the down-low mini-triangle with 51/21/37, and in a split second switch it all around using 47 and 46 and give the PP a completely different attack from the top of the left-side circle.
Now it's basically back and forth between Krug and Krejci, lame point shot praying for tip-in or deflection, rinse and repeat.
