Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
The whole point of the powerplay really is tugging guys out of position to try and shut you down, that takes energy, tire the defenders out, if you're just playing a casual game of pitch and toss you're not going to accomplish much.
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I would suppose that the best way to speed up the tempo of the power play is through plenty of practice at game speed. Of course, this risks taking away practice time from players who aren't on special teams.
This in turn reminds me of another old-time Flames coach. One of Bob Johnson's clever ideas was to have every player on the team practise on either the PP or PK, even if he wasn't planning to use them that way during games. That allowed him to devote more practice time to special teams while keeping everyone active and involved. Also, he could do 5-on-4 scrimmages with every player getting shifts.
It strikes me that this could be a good way of preparing the PP to react at full speed, instead of slowing down their play as they tended to do last year.