Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of Red Wings power play specialist Shayne Gostisbehere’s comments regarding…Well, the importance of power play scoring, from Gostisbehere’s initial presser:
Over his NHL career, he’s proven to be a power-play specialist. Gostisbehere has accounted for 31% of his goals (27 of 87) and 35.3% of his assists (79 of 224) while his team was enjoying the man advantage. So when the veteran defenseman speaks to what makes for an effective power-play unit, you’d be wise to listen.
In his opinion, familiarity is what breeds power-play success.
“To be honest I think the biggest thing for power plays is obviously familiarity, just playing with each other,” Gostisbehere said. “I think one of the biggest things is you get a comfort level playing with guys. You know where the outs are, you know where a guy’s gonna be.
“Obviously puck movement and chemistry are big things but I think for any good power plays out there, you see that they’ve been together for a while, number one. The way they move the puck, they just know where everyone is going to be. You just get used to guys and it helps a lot.”
