The Red Wings PP: No Righties Required

The other day Justin Bourne continued his excellent breakdown of each team's unique trait. His unique trait for the Red Wings was their extreme use of the slot to breakout, you can check that out here http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/56932. However, for this I’m going to use his breakdown of the Philadelphia Flyer’s elite power-play from last season. As you can see from the diagram he put up, the Flyers are in the perfect situation for a 1-3-1 power-play. With Claude Giroux as the primary puck handler, they have four elite scoring options.

While he breaks down the whole thing here, http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/570661, what helps to make this work is the players are both perfect for their designated role and each player is the proper hand. The Red Wings famously played multiple games this season with no right-handed players in the lineup. Also while the Flyer’s PP excels due to the multiple snipers on the ice, the Red Wing’s first PP unit is composed more of playmakers than pure snipers. The combination of these two things makes a typical 1-3-1 not the ideal power-play for the Wings. Instead they take advantage of their elite playmakers and try to create easy backdoor goals.

Here in the first game of the season, Detroit against Buffalo. Most Wings fans will recognize this play being run on the opposite side with Datsyuk on the half-wall but the idea remains the same. Z passes up to Kronwall to draw the forward towards him, creating space for the return pass.

Now Z has a step on the defender and he can attack the net.

 

Now as Z drives the net he has 3 options, shoot through the screen, use 13 in the middle, or have 11 driving for a tap-in backdoor. 

When they run it from the other side, Datsyuk attacks the net and can still shoot through the screen, or use Kronwall backdoor. Now we see why the PP requires more lefties, if Kronwall is right-handed its a tougher play to go backdoor since he has to skate through the passing lane. If Z is in the middle he can either put a deflected pass towards the net, or turn and shoot. In this case he drops into the corner which allows Datsyuk to recycle the play if he doesn't like any of the options. When it gets dropped to Z he walks up the wall, passes to the D and we start over again. Since the D is more of a facilitator than a scoring option, it doesn't really matter if they are a lefty or righty. This last look is from the last game playoff game against Boston. Here we see the 2^nd unit and Nyquist has those same options as Giroux, the only difference is again Kindl being a backdoor pass than a one-timer.

When Alfredsson in the lineup the Red Wings have the ability to run a more typical PP setup, usually running from the overload into an umbrella or 1-3-1. Thanks to Babcock's genius and the playmaking of 13 and 40 they should still be able to perform at an elite level on the PP even if Alfie decides to retire.