Rick Tocchet is generally happy with the way his penalty kill has attempted to function this season, while he is aware that the outcomes haven’t been great recently.
As it stands, Tocchet’s Vancouver Canucks have only killed 75% of the penalties they’ve received since the All-Star break going into their home game against the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday. In the NHL over that time, it is tied for seventh-worst. They are 20th in the league overall with a power play kill percentage of 78.6% this season.
Defender Noah Juulsen believes the squad has been doing a decent job with their fundamental setup and readings. Effective penalty killing requires both structural soundness and difficulty to break down, which forces the opposition to do things they don’t want to do. It also requires being ready for what the opposing power play is doing.
Making sure your stick is in the proper place and isn’t lured too far into or out of our diamond, or whatever setup it may be, is what matters. He clarified that in order to prevent getting too far out of position when they try to make a short slip-pass, you have to be in the lane to stop it, regardless of whether it’s a one-timer or not.
According to Tocchet and Juulsen, their PK will become more effective if they do the following three things:
1. Accept lesser consequences
It’s clear. That’s the argument Tocchet has been making for weeks, and it seems to be holding true recently. The Canucks have only been penalized once in the past six games. And every one of them has been slain.
However, they have conceded at least one goal when on the penalty kick nine times in the 14 games since the All-Star break in which they have taken several penalties. Approximately one out of every five opportunities, or 20.8% of the time, an NHL power play results in a goal.
The Canucks rank 12th in the NHL with an average of five minutes per game spent killing penalties.
You can see why the Canucks would be smart to spend less time on the penalty kill, even if it isn’t operating at peak efficiency.
2. Become more fortunate
For some penalty killers, it’s just pure luck. Good fortune with the puck’s bounce. or good fortune with your club.
Juulsen pointed to the Colorado Avalanche’s overtime defeat from last week. At the beginning of the extra period, the Avs were on the power play, and Juulsen was one of three Canucks who killed penalties. After he moved to stop a Nathan MacKinnon one-timer, the puck managed to find its way into the goal. It seemed as like it would flutter into the distant corner of the ice, but instead it struck Valeri Nichushkin’s visor and nosedived into the net to win.
Juulsen was still a bit taken aback by the goal against even after almost a week had passed: “It hits my leg, bounces up, and then goes in off their guy’s face?”
Or recall the terrible setback the Canucks suffered in Minnesota on February 19; with two men on the field, they allowed three goals to be scored.
Two of the circumstances were presumably unfortunate ones. In the first, Teddy Blueger, who usually performs a stick-lift play, missed it and instead cut Matt Boldy’s face. Then there was the play when J.T. Miller seemed to have cleared the puck by flicking it over the glass, but instead of the puck curling into the glass and down the ice, it curved into the bleachers.
“I believe we’ve done well in four-on-five. It hasn’t been all that horrible, to be honest. According to the way it seems, the five-on-threes are to blame, Tocchet said. “We’ve got some excellent runs, and we’ll have a lot of those unusual ones in a week. Can we therefore improve? Naturally.
3. Improve puck clearing
This takes us to Tocchet’s one particular criticism, which is the lackluster puck clearance performance of his club. Bad luck is impossible to have if the puck is not in your end.
Though Tocchet isn’t aware of any official metrics or tracking systems, he does want his penalty-killing players to do a better job of clearing the puck when they get the opportunity.
“I believe that this year’s clears have been really poor. Once again, it’s something we need to improve on,” he said. “If the man is carrying it on his stick, it must go 200 feet. It had better hurt if the man knocks it down. You had best break off his hand. You have to tear them down; you can’t simply flip it out.
When asked what the PK might improve upon, Juulsen gave a same response. He agreed that they needed to improve at clearing the puck.
That’s probably the largest issue, in my opinion. Although I believe we’re in the proper places and doing other actions, I anticipate that the clear will be quite beneficial. It’s 10 or maybe 20 seconds off that kill if you clear the puck,” he said.