Before we got in to strategy and the minutiae of the power play, Columbus Blue Jackets assistant coach Brad Larsen made one thing clear. It’s the players driving the success. Or, as another coach put it, you bake the cake with the ingredients you have.
It’s Zach Werenski's incredible poise running the show. It’s Sam Gagner's skill and ability that thwarted initial plans to have him run the Blue Jackets' second unit. Alexander Wennberg has been great along the half wall, a big reason the Blue Jackets hardly miss Ryan Johansen. Nick Foligno is dangerous by the goal line, and Cam Atkinson's league-best nine power-play goals highlight his ability to finish.
Ultimately, when talking power-play strategy, Larsen believes it comes down to personnel more than anything.
“It’s all about personnel,” he said when we chatted on Tuesday. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here. I’m fortunate to work with really skilled and smart players.”
But the Blue Jackets' success highlights a trend among NHL power plays: The days of having two big-shot defensemen manning the points and firing bombs are going away.
According to data mined by analytics executive Tyler Dellow, among the 21 distinct power-play units in the NHL this season, more minutes are being spent with four forwards and one defensemen versus the more traditional setup with three forwards and two defensemen. And those power plays are more potent.
The power plays featuring four forwards are averaging 6.9 goals per 60 minutes of action, compared to 5.7 goals per 60 for power plays featuring two defensemen. Their Corsi (shot attempts) for per 60 is 103.6 compared to 90.3. The opposing team’s save percentage against a team running four forwards, typically running a 1-3-1 alignment, is just .896, compared to .923 for the more traditional setup.
The teams that utilize four forwards most frequently -- Tampa Bay (95.3 percent of the time), Edmonton (89.2 percent) and Columbus (88.5 percent) -- are ranked No. 2, No. 11 and No. 1 overall in the league on the power play.
“There’s a couple things,” explained Lightning coach Jon Cooper on Tuesday. “One, because of shot-blocking and the way teams defend now, just standing up there and having two guys work the point and bomb away isn’t as effective anymore. Two, because there’s the pressure that goes on during penalty kills, it’s a skill game. Your skill players are your forwards. When you get around the net, those guys can make plays around the net. You want the puck in your best players' hands and usually those are the forwards.”
The reality in the NHL right now is that there is such a premium on defensemen with offensive skills that few teams have four of them to populate two power-play units. It’s hard enough for teams to find one to run the show on the top unit, making the emergence of Werenski in Columbus as important as any other development to that power play.
New Jersey, for instance, utilizes the four-forward power play 87 percent of the time, fourth-most in the league, but is still working on getting the power play to click and is sitting at No. 29 overall in conversion percentage. Detroit utilizes four forwards 72.1 percent of the time and is No. 30 in scoring percentage. You still need the horses, particularly the dynamic defenseman running the show.
“It comes down to personnel, really,” said Devils coach John Hynes. “If you can have a defenseman who can run it up top, you can have more offensive forwards. ... The defenseman makes the decision and distributes shot selection. That’s where you need that D-man.”
Columbus’ Larsen was a longtime penalty killer during his NHL career and has been a PK coach, so his approach to coaching the Blue Jackets' power play is influenced in part by the power play approaches that gave him trouble as a player and a coach.
What he likes about the Blue Jackets' setup is he has five players capable of making the next play. They can all finish and have the skill to make that extra pass. Rather than run the power play through shots from the point, the focus is on getting the puck to the high-threat areas on the ice, something their heat map suggests they do well:
“It’s about creating an advantage on the most dangerous part of the ice. That’s the key,” Larsen said. “It’s bodies and numbers and getting inside their guys.”
They find it's best to do that with four forwards.
But there are still teams that are effective using the traditional setup. The Anaheim Ducks have a power play that is No. 7 in the league at 22.3 percent. They’ve only used four forwards and one defenseman 0.5 percent of the time. One working theory for their success is the unusually high number of right-handed shots on their power play, including Ryan Kesler, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Sami Vatanen, giving theirs a different look.
A Western Conference assistant coach shot that theory down. For him, it goes back to the original thought.
It’s the personnel.
“Each power play in the top 10 presents different looks,” said the coach. “There are different variables. The guys in Anaheim have guys who can bomb it from the top -- Vatanen, [Cam] Fowler, [Hampus] Lindholm, even [Kevin] Bieksa can bomb it. They throw a different look. Then you go to Columbus, where Werenski can really drag the line and shoot it, but uses more of a quick wrister. They get a lot of their looks getting it to Gagner in the middle and that reverse tip they run. Or they put it down to Foligno at the net and he distributes.”
The Canadiens run a more traditional power play, with four forwards on the ice only 5.3 percent of the time. Shea Weber is a big part of that, with arguably the best shot in the game.
The Capitals' power play is unique because there’s no secret what they’re trying to do in setting up Alex Ovechkin, but the heat map this season suggests he’s being pushed farther away from the net than in previous seasons:
According to hockey-reference.com, Ovechkin is only getting 42.2 percent of his shots through on the power play this season, down from 49.6 percent during the course of his career. He’s been over 50 percent the past five seasons.
The Capitals' power play is at 16.9 percent, No. 18 in the league.
It also supports a theory that teams are better off without one featured player on the power play, to heighten unpredictability. Tampa has played most of this season without Steven Stamkos, and it hasn’t had an impact on the success of their power play as they sit No. 2 in the league.
Cooper wasn’t having it.
“I don’t care where our power play is; I’d rather have Steven Stamkos in the lineup than not in the lineup,” Cooper said. “Maybe if he was, we’d be No. 1.”