Pens Powerplay Is Losing It's Power

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StartFragmentThe Penguins power play has been a source of frustration this season. You could go on about numbers and stats, percentages before and after Sullivan, and with or without Malkin. The truth is that none of that matters. What matters is that more often than not, in key moments of games when the Penguins have needed a goal, the power play hasn't converted. The thing about a power play is that it only takes one goal to get things going. A power play with a killer instinct is more important than a consistent percentage. What makes the Penguins power play want to rip your eyeballs out with a salad fork is the very thing that makes it more beautiful than a sunrise after a snowfall. It's high risk, high reward. Impossible cross seam passes through three sticks for a back door tap-in seem to be the order of the day. When it works, you can't get any prettier, and they're one of those rare teams that have the skill to pull this off, but it sets itself up to be streaky. The obvious correction people echo is "shoot the puck". We see this all over Twitter. Malkin is the only one that shoots the puck, Kessel can't finish, etc. But shooting the puck is not the answer. It negates the one thing we talked about earlier that the Penguins have that other bubble teams don't: that incredible passing ability. The correction the Pens need is more movement. Not puck movement. Player movement. They tend to be stationary and let the puck do the work. They're one of the best puck supporting teams in the entire league. They just need to change the timing of when they arrive into the prime scoring areas. Here's a video that tells you everything you need to know. The first passing sequence is a stationary Malkin to a stationary Letang, to a stationary Kessel, and there's not a hope of him getting a shot through. Literally 5 seconds later, a moving Malkin in the exact same spot to a moving Hornqvist in the exact same spot Kessel was standing, and it was a can't miss. With all the pace and energy the Pens have in every other situation, the power play just needs the same pace, movement, and urgency.

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