Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I have been suggesting much the same all season, and the continued Flames power play woes got me to doing some digging into historical trends. I looked into how much change teams on average will experience on the power play, and unsurprisingly the numbers are all over the map.
I surveyed just the past four seasons to see how much a team improved or declined in their power play effectiveness and rank from one year to the next. For example, last year the Buffalo Sabres iced the #1 power play, which was up ten places from 2015–16, when they ranked 11th.
Over the course of the last three years every NHL team has seen an average change in their power play rank of over nine places:
· From 2014–15 to 2015–16 teams fluctuated between improvements of 27 places (Anaheim) and declines of 16 places (Vancouver).
· In 2016–17 teams fluctuated between improvements of 27 places (Toronto) and declines of 22 places (SJ).
· This year teams have fluctuated between improvements of 22 places (SJ) and declines of 24 places (Edmonton).
Over the course of three years an average of 13 teams sees a rank-change in less than ten places—that is less than half the League—and 6 teams every year will move more than 15 places.
In other words, it is fairly commonplace to see dramatic changes from one year to the next in the performance of a team's power play. Some of this is explained through changes in coaches and personnel, but these do not account for all of it.
Yes, the Flames power play is currently bad, but I am not convinced that a coaching change will resolve it. As has already been mentioned a few times, this is the SAME group that produced a top-ten NHL power play last year with essentially the SAME personnel (sans Kris Versteeg, but I am continually informed by other posters that he makes no perceptible difference). I think this is just something the players will work through. Maybe it doesn't happen this season; maybe it occurs during the playoffs (the Flames powerplay in last year's first round was positively lethal); maybe Versteeg's reinsertion will ignite whatever is missing at present with this group. It sucks right now, but I am not overly worried about it in the long run.
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The PP is bad because of a poor strategy.
Last year, the PP was statistically 'good' despite a poor strategy.
Evaluating PPs quantitatively is impractical because of how volatile these things are and how small the sample sizes are for goal events. There is a lot of noise.
Qualitatively, the strategy continues to be bizarre and not reflective of any dangerous PPs. How does a Gaudreau wrister from the high left circle or Versteeg/Hamilton wrister from the high right circle ever accomplish anything against half-decent coverage and goaltending? Only by luck and goalie whiffs do we ever appear to score. That and outlier games / playoff series where Monahan is confoundingly left wide open in the slot by poor PK units.
We do not utilize one timers, cross ice passing plays, or playmaking from behind the goal line. That is on the coaching staff.
Even last year, our 2nd PP unit was more effective than the first, which we knew was not something you want to depend on. We had TJ Brodie manning PP1 for all of that top PP unit last year... where ever was the logic in that when Brodie is awful at point shots and both flanking forwards are playing their strong wing? Brodie is a passer and he's passing to guys who have to collect the puck and wrist it? It's just ridiculous. If you want Brodie to be the dedicated point passer he has to be setting up one-timers for guys on their offwing, anybody really... Monahan, Gio, Stone, Hamilton, Versteeg, Gaudreau, Jankowski, Backlund, Tkachuk, Bennett.... It was never even an option.
They shouldn't get a pass because 'it worked last year'. This year's PP might even be unlucky - who knows - but it is without a doubt an area where better strategies could and should be implemented ASAP. Just ask Gaskal for one. It's no coincidence Gaudreau's PP goal scoring has been cut in half under this coaching staff - he is playing the opposite side for some reason.
Hell, our inept PP strategy may very well be the primary driver of the decline of Troy Brouwer. He was hardly a great 5v5 player in other stops but he made a living as a designated shooter from the mid-slot. Is Monahan not versatile enough to play any other role on a PP that you can't use Brouwer in the specific role he was paid 4.5 million to play? We may never find out, because experimentation and adaptation are foreign concepts to this coaching staff.