The Hockey News’s Red Wings correspondent, Sam Stockton, took part in The Coaches’ Site’s TCS Live conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan in June, and he took note of Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde’s presentation at said conference:
At The Coaches’ Site’s annual TCS Live conference in Ann Arbor late last month, Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde delivered a talk entitled “The Simple Habits of an Effective Power Play.”
Lalonde noted that the principles he discussed in the presentation were the same ones he advocates with the Red Wings and that the clips he used to illustrate them were the exact ones he showed to Team USA at Men’s Worlds in May, for whom he ran the power play.
Before diving into the heart of his subject matter, Lalonde offered a challenge disguised as a word of warning. “First and foremost, the power play can be very complex and can be a little bit scary,” he said. “And sometimes people run from it. I can say that confidently because at times throughout my career, I did that. [I was the] PK guy in Tampa, [I’m] the head coach now, it’s easy just to pass it off and go from there.”
Lalonde credited assistants Alex Tanguay and Jay Varady for the work they did to help the Detroit power play jump from 26th to 17th in the NHL a year ago. Though he opened with that nicety, he would go on to point out with a sheepish grin that, even if Team Canada took gold at Worlds, the Canadian unit Tanguay oversaw converted far less often than Lalonde’s American power play (21.74% to 29.17%).
However, despite the challenge of running a power play unit, Lalonde pointed out to the coaches assembled before him that embracing that challenge can equip a young coach with a “tool” to “climb the ladder.” He cited Jeff Halpern and Brett McLean, two former colleagues, as examples.
