Kornacki’s notebook, Duff: the Wings’ power play is struggling again

The Detroit News’s Steve Kornacki filed a Friday notebook article in which he discusses the Red Wings’ struggling power play, noting that the Wings have scored 2 power play goals over the course of 4 games, running at 14.2% efficiency:

Coach Jeff Blashill was asked to explain why his team came up empty on three power plays in Thursday night’s 3-0 home loss to the Calgary Flames.

“We didn’t handle their pressure good enough,” he said. “When we had chances to attack, we didn’t attack. When we had chances to make plays, we didn’t make plays. And we turned the puck over too many times when we didn’t need to do that.”

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin added: “We’re going to look at the film and try to be better. We have the guys in the locker room to have a good power play unit. We believe that.”

Forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Filip Zadina have Detroit’s power-play goals.

It won’t help that Bertuzzi can’t play in Montreal because he’s the lone Red Wing electing not to get the coronavirus vaccine and isn’t allowed in his native country. He’s scored a team-high five goals and is the kind of aggressive shooter who makes opponents pay for being down one man.

Blashill said even one power-play goal would’ve made a big difference against Calgary. But Detroit was blanked on two opportunities while putting 14 shots on goalie Jacob Markstrom in the second period.

“We had enough opportunities,” Blashill said. “If you score one or two, it’s a different atmosphere. … Ultimately, the power play needs to be better than it was.”

Continued; simpler, quicker passing, moving their feet, pucks and bodies to the front of the net, and motion instead of passing from stationary player to stationary player. The answers to the Wings’ power play woes aren’t hard to figure out. It’s just a matter of executing.

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.

One thought on “Kornacki’s notebook, Duff: the Wings’ power play is struggling again”

  1. I guess Duff and Duhatchek get paid too be Stupid. After 5 games stats might not even mean anything. I guess living with stupid is part of the game and why many athletes don’t read this dribble.

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