Detroit Red Wings: Power Play Power Outage, Whats Wrong With The PP?

Posted 10/18/2010 - 17:16 by HockeyPolls

Whether you are are an NHL fan or a Detroit Red Wings fan, you have become accustomed to the type of style of play they have perfected over the last two decades:

Puck possession.

Detroit has always been a team that no matter where the shot is taken from, weak or hard, they put it on the net.

Another thing that Detroit has always been known for is their power play.

When you have such players like Nicklas Lidstrom quarterbacking the first unit, along with Brian Rafalski, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom, as the opposing team you would want to stay out of the box as much as possible.

But so far this year it seems to be that if an opposing team wants to beat the Detroit Red Wings, it's best to go down a man because there is nothing to worry about giving up goals.

What is wrong with the power play?

First and foremost, no one ever likes to use injuries as an excuse, but the Red Wings are without their other sergeant on the blue line, Brian Rafalski.

Rafalski is still 3 weeks away from returning from arthroscopic knee surgery.

With Rafalski gone, Babcock has been forced to switch things up.

What usually goes as Rafalski-Lidstrom on the first unit and Kronwall-Modano on the second unit, has gone to Lidstrom-Modano on the first, Kronwall-Kindl on the second.

Lidstrom and Modano aren't supposed to play the full two minutes of a power play which means a less inexperienced Jakub Kindl to step in a try his best at what he is not used to.

Detroit also has the skill to pass the puck countlessly around the perimeter trying to look for the perfect shot.

This may also cause a demise of production on the power play because of too much passing.

To much passing, missed opportunities.

Detroit is currently 4-for-24 on the power play which includes a 1-for-8 try against Phoenix on Saturday.

Detroit Red Wings: Power Play Power Outage, Whats Wrong With The PP?

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