[Pope] Blackhawks are 0-for-7 on the PP and 5-for-5 on the PK through two games. I’m curious which streak will end first…?
Blackhawks are 0-for-7 on the PP and 5-for-5 on the PK through two games. I'm curious which streak will end first…?
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 12, 2023
by JD397
4 Comments
Want to see more Bedard on his off wing doing 1Ts and just more shots from him in general on the PP. Hopefully the coaching staff is telling him to just let it rip
PK
PK going to be 100% entire season so obviously the PP
Probably too early to talk about this, I know, but I think after a dogshit preseason for the powerplay and now a dogshit start to the regular season we should discuss this in some capacity.
Here are a couple powerplay stats from the preseason:
**Team Stats**
– 2 goals
– 33:55 min of PP TOI total in six games, or 5:39 min per game
– 17th in CF/60
– 23rd in FF/60
– 27th in GF/60 (3.54)
– 21st in xGF/60 (7.15)
– 28th in SCF/60
So all this to me basically confirms what we actually saw on the ice during preseason – it sucked. I can’t find an exact figure for powerplay opporunities but only two goals in something like 17 PP chances (~34 min divided by 2min/PP) is horrid. We were medicore at creating shot attempts but far worse at getting those shots through to the net, which is leading to the weak xGF figure. And despite how bad the xGF and shot stats already are, our finishing was even worse with GF/60 both ranking near the bottom of the league and well below the expected rate.
Now, I should add that exact expected goal numbers and any per 60 stat doesn’t mean much as a raw value since this is preseason and the sample size is so small, but this at least gives us a baseline of the poor performance. I’m focusing more on the leaguewide rank and how these stats compare to each other than the exact figures.
What we saw all preseason has persisted here in the early regular season with it just being simply terrible, if the 0-for-7 stat wasn’t obviously enough.
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Now let’s look at the personnel for this powerplay.
**Player TOI/GP Leaders – Preseason**
1. Bedard (4:18)
2. Jones (3:40)
3. Athanasiou (3:38)
4. Donato (3:29)
5. Raddysh (3:25)
**Player TOI/GP Leaders – Regular Season**
1. Bedard (4:51)
2. Perry (4:18)
3. Jones (3:54)
4. Hall (3:45)
5. Donato (3:43)
The regular season times are much more indicative of the “true” top unit since guys like Perry and Hall didn’t see much preseason action, but there are still some obvious problems here. Basically the only good thing is riding Bedard for as much time as he can get lol issues I see:
– Jones should not be the go-to option to quarterback the PP1. He just is not that great at running the powerplay and we have Korchinski up for at least a cup of coffee in the NHL here, why not unleash him on the PP (where his value may be highest) and see how it rolls? We know Jones is not great in that role and we know Kevin can be a very strong contributor there based on his puck skills, skating, and success at the Junior level. Why are we not giving him the full authority here? If he gets sent back down to Seattle, okay then move Jokes back up, but in the meantime just go for it.
– Bedard needs to be a one-timer option but we can’t move the puck around well enough to give him the proper lanes and passes to utilize his shooting talents. This is a major problem for both the team and Bedard’s personal campaign this year.
– What the fuck are we trying to do by keeping Reichel away from the top unit? He was 10th on the team in TOI/GP on the powerplay in the preseason and 9th in the regular season so far. He spent 6:28 on the ice with Bedard in preseason and only 40 seconds with him in the regular season so far. I just really don’t understand why he is entrenched in the second unit rather than having him on the first so we can stack all of our best offensive weapons on PP1 – which is what has been proven over and over by the league as the best way to go on the powerplay. Trying to build two “equally” effective units just drags both of them down. Load up on PP1.
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In summary, this powerplay sucked in preseason and continues to suck now so I am not expecting many goals until they change the personnel, as a start.
Give the kids the damn keys, swap out Jones for Korchinski and Donato for Reichel. Silver lining of Hall going down so early is that *maybe* Lukas gets his chance playing with Bedard in any real capacity, but based on Richardson favoring Athanasiou last night both at 1LW and on the PP1 after Hall got hurt I am not optimistic… I get wanting him to develop on his own but at the end of the day we aren’t putting either Bedard or Reichel in the best place to succeed by having them so distinctly separated.
IF THIS CONTINUES I WILL KEEP BITCHING ON REDDIT