Montreal Canadiens Need To Optimize Power Play Personnel
The Montreal Canadiens have been great at even strength this season, but are struggling on special teams. The first thing they need to do to fix this problem is change the personnel on the top power play.
The Montreal Canadiens are having a good season at five on five. When the penalty boxes are empty the Habs are among the most dangerous teams in the league offensively. In fact, heading into last night’s games, the Canadiens were tied for the most five on five goals scored in the league with 68.
The problems with the Canadiens begin when someone, anyone, for either team heads to the penalty box. Montreal has been among the worst penalty killing teams in the NHL all year and are currently ranked 30th, killing penalties at a rate of 70.1%.
The Habs started okay on the power play, but have really struggled of late. They rank 17th in the league with the man advantage at 18.8%. Their power play actually started the season well, but has been awful for a very long stretch.
Since the Habs headed out west for a road trip through Arizona, Vegas and Colorado in late October, they have struggled to provide offence with the man advantage. In those 18 games, the Canadiens have scored six power play goals on 45 opportunities. That is a long period of time and a conversion rate of just 13.3%.
It doesn’t make sense that a team that can score as well as anyone at even strength, can’t find the back of the net when they are playing a man up. What makes even less sense is the Habs deployment when they have a power play.
In the last handful of games, the Canadiens have been turning to Shea Weber, Joel Armia and Max Domi on the top power play when given the opportunity and that makes sense. They round out the unit with Jordan Weal and Nick Cousins and that makes no sense whatsoever.
Weal has played 20 games because he was healthy scratched for the other eight. In those 20 games he has three goals and four points. Cousins has played 22 games and been a healthy scratch as well. He has three goals and eight points.
Cousins did score a power play goal last night, but a broken clock will answer your question correctly if you give it 12 hours. Taking a couple of players from the list of scratches to the top power play just doesn’t make sense. Especially when much better options are sitting on the bench when the power play is going on.
Tomas Tatar has five power play points and Nick Suzuki has four. Yet, they both get the exact same amount of power play ice time as Weal. Lately, Weal has been getting much more and his production is non-existent.
Also, Brendan Gallagher is the perfect player to have in front of the net, but for some reason it has been Nick Cousins for weeks now. The team was struggling for a short stint before turning to Weal and Cousins but why trust a couple of fourth line wingers to break your slump with the man advantage?
It is a really odd decision by head coach Claude Julien to bench some of his most offensive players on the power play in favour of depth wingers. Can you imagine the Toronto Maple Leafs using Pierre Engvall and Nick Shore on the power play over John Tavares? Would the Boston Bruins ever shake up their power play to feature Chris Wagner over Brad Marchand?
Of course they wouldn’t. That’s because you put your best players on the ice on the power play and let them do their thing. You allow them to show some creativity and continue to go with them even if they struggle for a period of time.
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That’s what the Canadiens have to do. They need to trust their most creative offensive players like Tatar, Suzuki, Gallagher or even Jesperi Kotkaniemi and not expect fourth line grinders to score goals on the power play.