The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the Red Wings’ struggling power play this morning, as evidenced by the 0-for-4 performance in the Wings’ 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Monday night:
“We haven’t gotten any quality looks at the net,” captain Dylan Larkin said after Monday’s 4-1 loss at Madison Square Garden. “I think we’ve done a good job setting up possession and we’ve moved the puck around well. I also think that for whatever reason right now, we do really on the first power play and then we kind of go to sleep for the rest of our opportunities. That can’t happen. Every time you go over the boards, you need to try and make it count.”
The power play was a key reason behind the Wings’ success last season, finishing ninth in the NHL at 23.1%. So far this season, it’s at 9.1%. Again, it’s three games, but it should also concern the team.
“The power play hasn’t produced, we only have one on the year,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “We’ve been having some looks, but we have to start putting it in the back of the net.”
Gostisbehere led last season’s Wings with 29 power play points. David Perron had 17 on man advantages. Robby Fabbri and Daniel Sprong each had 12. All are gone, through walking in free agency or trades. Gostisbehere played the point on the first unit, and had a knack for setting up teammates.
Gustafsson got a chance in that spot in the first game, which the Wings finished 1-for-5 on power plays; the one they scored was during 5-on-3 play. Having put Seider on the point on the first unit the last two games, and experimented with Ben Chiarot on the point on the second unit, Gustafsson may get a reprieve from watching games in street clothes.
“We’ll probably get Gus back there on a look,” Lalonde said. “And again, we have a lot of options, it’s just, the hands don’t perfectly line up at times. But we have to play fast through it.”
Continued; I know that it’s easy to hit the panic button right now, but I’m advocating hitting the “concern button” instead right now.
1-for-11 on the power play isn’t acceptable by any means, but I feel that it was inevitable that the Wings were going to having some difficulties integrating Vladimir Tarasenko and Erik Gustafsson (or the lack thereof) into the power play. It was going to be tough to replace David Perron and Shayne Gostisbehere, and it’s been tough.
Three games in = not sufficient time to freak out and start pulling my remaining hair out (I was bald by the age of 20, stupid genes). I’m a bit jittery for sure, because the power play has to be a difference-maker for the Wings to succeed long-term, but I expected it to struggle initially, and that’s what it’s doing.
