There is no shortage of intriguing storylines in the first-round matchup between the Penguins and Rangers, but one of the most important is the heavyweight battle that’s about to take place between the Rangers power play and the Penguins penalty kill. It’s got all the trappings of the classic fight between the unstoppable force and the immovable object.
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It features the league’s fourth-best power play against the league’s third-best penalty kill — a special teams battle that’s important given the role penalties play in the postseason and the make-or-break nature of power-play opportunities. The traditional adage says whistles get tucked away in the playoffs, but the opposite is true. Each year, we see more penalties called in the postseason than we do in the regular season.
The Penguins have flirted with the top five all season long in expected goal against rate, or the rate at which they mitigate quality shots and scoring chances in the defensive zone. Per Pat Bacon’s model, Pittsburgh finished the year sixth. For all their risk-taking, the Penguins are among the league’s best in shutting down quality chances. The Rangers have not traditionally been a powerhouse offensively. They end the year 28th in generating quality scoring chances, per Bacon’s model. That only slightly improved post-deadline with some of the lineup improvements they made, including the red hot Andrew Copp.
For these reasons, a strong power play can keep the Rangers from needing most of their goals to come at even strength, which favors the Penguins.
Given the weight of special teams in this series, it’s worth a closer analysis. I (Jesse Marshall) will be handling the Penguins penalty kill, and Shayna Goldman will guide us through the New York power play.
The Penguins penalty kill shares several traits with its even strength. Notably, they want to be disruptive as possible and pursue the puck throughout the opposing team’s process. On the breakout, they’re hounding you with an up-tempo forecheck. In the zone, they’re branching out to hassle the puck-carrier in every corner.
Kris Letang, a critical hassler on the penalty kill, summed it up with one word: pressure.
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“A big part of the penalty kill is pressure, just trying to force teams to make plays that they don’t want to make,” Letang said.
The Penguins use a diamond shape to defend the opposing team’s penalty kill. This is the base from where everything else will happen.
The only stationary part of this structure is the base defender, the “1” in the diagram above. His job is to defend the net and the slot (keep that in mind for later). The rest of the players, a second defenseman, labeled “2,” and two forwards, labeled “3” and “4,” will jut out and attack the puck wherever it goes. Their job is to disrupt the opposing power play’s timing by forcing them into making decisions they don’t want to make.
The threat of a turnover or stolen puck forces teams out of their cadence and into passes in lanes that aren’t open yet. The structure also forces opponents to the perimeter and out of high-danger scoring areas. Most shots are coming from the point or other low-danger scoring areas. This is taxing and requires short shifts, fresh legs and dedication to attacking the puck.
In the clip below, consider how the arms of the penalty kill reach out to disrupt the Minnesota Wild:
There are distinct ties to how the Penguins play at even strength and on the power play. Even within the opposing breakout, you have disruptive elements attempting to force the puck out of preferred areas.
Within the next clip, we get more of the same. The puck stays largely to the perimeter of the ice as the arms of the Penguins penalty kill stretch out. Notice that the shots in these clips come from fairly innocuous areas outside traditionally high-danger areas.
The elephant in the room is that the Penguins’ best work on the penalty kill came earlier in the season. The below chart shows the Penguins’ expected goal against totals as a 10-game rolling average, courtesy of MoneyPuck.com. As you can see, it’s been a volatile spring for the Penguins’ shorthanded unit.
While there isn’t necessarily kryptonite to the Penguins’ penalty kill, there is a bit of a gray area against specific types of power plays.
In the penalty-kill diagram we saw earlier, the lower defenseman, labeled “1” at the bottom of the diamond, is responsible for defending the net front and the slot. This can be and has been exploited down the stretch. By overloading this area with bodies, teams force defensemen to choose between defending two areas of the ice.
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This creates conundrums in front of the net. More often than not, defensemen defend the high-danger area of the slot, giving opponents time to get to loose pucks in front of the net.
In the next clip, John Marino attempts to cover someone at the doorstep of the crease while keeping an eye on a threat to shoot in the slot. The result is a forward who can sneak into optimal position for a screen and deflection as a result of Marino’s indecision, producing a scoring opportunity.
We see it again with Letang in the next clip. Watch as he drifts off his man in front of the net, giving the opponent the first crack at a loose puck off of the rebound. In the diamond structure, all of the support is generally at the circle. There’s a big burden on the defenseman at the base to make the right reads and the right coverages based on where the opponent is and where they’re directing the puck.
In this scenario, it only takes a second, and when the shot is taken, Letang is not in a position to box anyone out or be first to a loose puck. This is similar to what we saw in the above clip.
Finally, we’ve even seen this happen against the Rangers in a recent meeting. In this clip, I put a box around the gray area so you can see it in action. There’s a bit of a zone-style defense going on here with the diamond structure.
Remember, the goal is to pressure the puck carrier. Part of that is having a jump on where the puck is going next and marking the right players. In this clip, we see another situation where a forward is behind the Penguins defense and has the first crack at any loose puck. The overhead clips of all of these goals look eerily identical. There is a notable soft spot in this structure that seems to have been exploited more and more in recent weeks.
As we’ll see on the Rangers side of the coin, their power play is geared toward getting bodies in this area. They occupy the net front and the slot and will drive players downward to the crease the moment a shooting opportunity presents itself.
The Penguins defense is going to have to be engaged to make the correct reads. They’re going to need extra support from the middle segment of the diamond. There are too many situations where the Penguins find themselves at a disadvantage due to uncertainty in front of the net. If more support is given down low, these assignments become much less ambiguous. While it comes at the sacrifice of additional shots from the point, these are mostly low-percentage shots. The Penguins can step in and quell any second or third chances.
Let’s go to Shayna for a look at the Rangers power play.
Just like the Penguins penalty kill, the Rangers power play has been trending down of late, but there are ways to improve it in this series. Clicking at a rate of 25.2 percent, New York ranked fourth in power-play success during the regular season. That holds true below the surface, ranking fifth in offensive generation from a volume and quality perspective, according to Evolving-Hockey.com.
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For much of the last two seasons, barring injuries, the Rangers have rolled with the same top unit, which plays over 70 percent of the available minutes: Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Ryan Strome.
Fox and Kreider’s roles have remained unchanged through it all: The defender plays the point, while the winger is the net-front presence. Through much of last season, Panarin was stationed in the left circle, giving more mystery on whether he’d use his right-handed shot or elite playmaking. Zibanejad’s two-way play made him a fit for the slot. And Strome was deployed on the right. The problem was, little offense was created from the right, and there was no threat from their off-wing – even though there were three passers who could tee a player up.
This year, Zibanejad shifted back to the left, where his right-handed blast would see a lot more action. Center Strome moved to the slot, while Panarin took over on the right. That adjustment made two things abundantly clear: Zibanejad became the primary shooter on that unit and Panarin the passer. There are positives and drawbacks to this formation, which the Rangers have to be mindful of if they want to exploit the Penguins’ penalty kill.
It’s abundantly clear who the primary shooter on the unit is. While Kreider obviously has the most goals of this unit – a league-leading 25 – few in the league attempt as many shots as Zibanejad’s 33.4 per 60. Moving him back to that shooting position kickstarted his game after a slow start. He has the firepower to score slappers from that position, along with the quickness and accuracy to beat opposing goalies with a one-timer.
It puts Panarin in an ideal passing position, which is his bread and butter. He’s slick and evasive and can react quickly to penalty-killers to create a new passing lane if they take one away. That’s why this formation can work, even if it’s predictable that two of the best puck-movers in the league on the power play, Panarin and Fox, are going to try to set up their primary shooter.
But that predictability can bite them, especially in a series, where the Penguins’ focus is purely on pre-scouting their opponents’ tendencies. Check the clip from late March below where the Penguins anticipated this exact play.
That doesn’t mean the Rangers shouldn’t attempt this – they absolutely should. Zibanejad’s shot is such a weapon, especially if it’s preceded by a lateral pass from Panarin or Fox. But they also have to throw in some other plays to change it up. Take this example against the Senators. As focused as Ottawa’s penalty-killers were on the winger on the right, it seemed their goal was blocking a passing opportunity to the left, not taking away Panarin’s shot, which is another weapon on this top unit. The pass-first player just needs to be willing to use that weapon, and the Rangers need to draw up plays emphasizing it to give more dimension to that unit.
Because as it stands, as the visual from HockeyViz shows below, that left side is pretty void of shooting. Panarin could be counted on for that more when he was on his off-wing but he’s proven he can still manage to score with a shooting angle to the right. He just has to attempt it more often.
That would ensure there are at least three shooting threats to be aware of in Zibanejad, Panarin and Kreider in front. Kreider has shown he can finish off shots, whether with redirects or off rebounds, coming from the left, right or center, so this shouldn’t deflate his impact, either.
Tweaking strategies would add more dimension and variety to the Rangers power play and help further exploit the weaknesses in the Penguins’ short-handed approach that’s trended down to end the season. That way, penalty-killers can’t only rove to Zibanejad to take away passing lanes to set him up but provide other options when that happens. Then, if Pittsburgh starts changing its tactics to account for it, that should consequently open the Rangers’ best shooter back up.
While neither the Penguins penalty kill nor the Ranger’s power play has reinvented the wheel with its structure, they have proven their quality over the course of the year. Each squad has shown it can make adjustments as needed.
The Penguins are going to test the Rangers’ ability to work the puck to their shooters to optimize their presence in the crease and low areas; coincidentally enough, the Penguins have traditionally struggled in those areas. Each side seems geared to create issues for their opponent’s specific approach. One of the most critical areas we’ll be watching as this series unfolds is what adjustments each team makes and how they continue to respond to those adjustments as time wears on.
With the Penguins and Rangers hoping to play stingy hockey in their own ends at even strength, this special teams matchup could go a long way toward dictating who wins this series.
(Photo: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)