Our PP blows chunks.
The difference between the Vancouver Canucks' power play and ours was night and days. The reason being, they actually play it like a PP. We play it like ES.
When we enter the zone, the first thing E. Staal, or Gerbe, or Skinner do is:
--Try to skate it into traffic themselves, or;
--Pass to the nearest player.
In other words, they play it like even strength. They don't try to slow it down and find the open man. Once you find the open man, you can start to play keep away. Move the puck around, get some shooting lanes or good scoring opportunities. Semin actually tries to do this on the PP, which makes him one out of....?
Instead, they pass to someone who is covered or they dump it in, or they skate it themselves into a bunch of people. That works at ES because its a percentages game; it won't work 75% of the time, but you can try it again and again as the game goes on.
But on the PP? Since the other team can ice the puck, its not going to work. We aren't actually taking advantage of the numbers disparity that a PP presents us.