For all the challenges these Penguins face, it's difficult not to feel as if they could alleviate the burden many of them present with a consistently threatening power play.
Special teams -- more specifically, flexing muscle on the power play -- is one area they can leverage to compensate for other shortcomings. But that hasn't happened nearly enough this season, as their 21.5% success rate has them tied for 16th in the NHL.
Despite the second power-play unit converting in the Penguins' crushing 4-2 loss to the Islanders here at PPG Paints Arena Monday, both units went scoreless over another three opportunities throughout the night.
The problem wasn't necessarily that they went scoreless across those opportunities (although it would've helped), it's that they were mostly so wretched that momentum completely flipped out of their favor. Instead of taking control on the power play, they found themselves chasing.
"In the second period I thought we lost a little bit of momentum with our power plays," Mike Sullivan said. "I thought we played less of a north-south game. We didn't play straight-ahead, and I think our team sets itself up for success when we play a north-south game, when we play straight-ahead. We're trying to keep the puck, but you can't always keep the puck. Sometimes you gotta put it behind teams and you gotta create offense different ways."
I'll repeat that Jason Zucker did score on the power play at the tail end of the Penguins' third opportunity of the night in the second period, which happened to be their most productive in terms of chances, but the other 7:38 they played with the advantage wasn't very pretty.
The Penguins' main power-play breakout consists of everyone's favorite: The drop-pass. For it to be effective, the initial puck carrier has to be an actual threat to cross the offensive blue line or at least make a play in the neutral zone, but too often the initial carrier doesn't come up ice with enough pace or energy. This allows opposing penalty-kills to sit on the drop-pass and make it miserable for them to try and enter the zone.
They actually scored off the rush on the power play Saturday against the Devils, and after the game I made note that they should look to do it more often. They don't have to set up shop in-zone to score every single time. Catch the opposition napping by attacking in transition. At the very least, become a threat to do so.
On the first power-play opportunity Monday, it was nice to see a bit more aggressiveness in transition to enter the zone, but it wasn't executed particularly well.
That seemed to set the tone:
Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby did a nice job of pushing the pace through the middle of the ice and eventually working the puck to Jake Guentzel as he came down the right wing with speed. Crosby's pass wasn't quite on the money, so Guentzel had to corral the puck while shielding it with his body from pressure. He did that just fine, and found himself opening up to the middle of the ice.
But then, despite a clear field of vision, he forced a cross-ice pass that was promptly tipped out of the zone, requiring the entire unit to retreat and do it again.
The very next rush up ice, they again opted to push the pace instead of utilizing the drop-pass. They went right back to the same well, finding Guentzel along the right side. This time, however, Crosby gained the zone himself before dishing wide:
The problem on this entry is that Guentzel put himself in a really bad spot to receive the pass and allowed himself to get swarmed quickly. Instead of opening up to the pass or changing his angle at all so that he wouldn't have to handcuff himself with the puck out front, he had no other choice but to put a pass off the boards back to the point.
It was off the mark, and the Penguins were yet again required to retreat and do it again. By that point they'd spent 40 seconds on the power play without even setting up. Perhaps a bit of frustration kicked in there, as Letang then saucered a low-conversion pass back to the offensive blue line, which forced Guentzel to pursue a 50/50 puck.
On their next opportunity during the early stages of the second period, Crosby took advantage of open ice and did it all himself to cross into the offensive zone. Again, no drop-pass. He didn't have any close support and, even though he didn't need to, fired a backhand pass off the boards below the goal line to the other side of the ice.
It went right to an Islanders skater for a chip out of the zone. That chip landed right in the path of oncoming Zach Parise, who was able to manage a decent backhand look on Tristan Jarry:
It's hard to be critical at all of the captain for what he's done this season, but that play can't happen. He wasn't pressured to the point of getting rid of the puck. Even if he was, where's the scanning to know where the puck must go? That's one thing he's always done incredibly well, knowing where everyone is on the ice at all times, but he didn't even so much as take a peek over his shoulder before making the pass.
Evgeni Malkin spent more time on the power play than anyone (4:58) and attempted three shots. From the top unit, Rickard Rakell (2) was the only other skater with multiple attempts. Crosby had one in 3:52, Letang had none in 4:13, and Guentzel had none in 2:51.
Again, the second unit did score, and that's always a bonus, but they had their struggles, too.
Jumping back to first-period action, the second unit -- like the first -- looked to attack in transition, and did so by utilizing a similar play along the right side of the ice at the offensive blue line.
Everything was going great ... until the puck rolled right off Kasperi Kapanen's stick for an easy Islanders clear:
And when the second unit did establish some zone time, they were up against Jeff Carterclearing the puck for the Islanders:
It could've been a much different night for the power play. Carter had an opportunity from the doorstep that nearly trickled in, only to be swooped off the goal line at the last second by Alexander Romanov.
At another point, Crosby had a wide-open net from a similar area but wasn't able to get a good shot off. It's a game of bounces, and sometimes they're simply unfavorable. But it's clear from everything above that the Penguins didn't have their swagger on the power play Monday, and that seems to be the case too often.
It's fair to mention the power play's success rate for the season includes the stretch in which Ty Smith quarterbacked the top unit, but even over the last nine games with both Letang and Jeff Petry in the lineup, they've gone just 5-for-28 (17.9%), ranking 17th in the league during that span.
It's possible I just hyper-fixated on this element because I brought it up last game, but I really did like that the Penguins weren't as reliant on the drop-pass Monday and instead took a more assertive approach in transition.
That said, there's a lot of cleaning up to do once they actually cross the blue line.
As I wrote on the very first day of the season, the core can still have its greatest impact via the power play. They've done so at times, but it would go a long way for them to push closer to becoming a top-10 unit. This is one thing largely in their control.
