Crosby’s return to provide booster shot for power play
Sidney Crosby collected the puck at center ice and — less than seven seconds later — it was in the back of the net.
During the brief time in between, Crosby turned on the jets to gain the zone. As all four Minnesota defenders converged on the Penguins captain, like a basketball defense collapsing on a driving point guard, Crosby flipped a backhanded pass. Evgeni Malkin snagged the puck and whipped it to Bryan Rust. Back to Malkin. Goal.
Start-to-finish, it was a beauty. But it all started with that zone entry from the captain.
“He’s a playmaker,” Malkin said Tuesday. “I’ve known Sid a long time. We try to move [the] puck quicker. You see, it worked right away.”
The play highlighted just some of what makes Crosby special. Speed. Vision. Precision.
Those were also some of the same words that had been missing from the Penguins’ power play this season, when the man-advantage really hasn’t been much of an advantage at all.
For years, the Penguins boasted one of the league’s best power-play units. Last season, they ranked fifth in the NHL with a 24.6% conversation rate. The previous season, in 2017-18, they led the league at 26.2%.
But this year?
The top power-play unit has endured injuries and inconsistencies. Partially as a result, it entered Tuesday night with a conversion rate of just 18.9%. That ranked them 20th in the league.
As recently as last week, coach Mike Sullivan was fielding questions about the challenges of coaching the power play and its struggles.
“[Power plays are] one of the more challenging things to coach,” he said. “When you’re coaching offense, there’s always a fine line between over-coaching and players becoming robotic [or] under-coaching in the sense that you don’t give them enough structure so that they can be somewhat predictable for one another. We’ve always, as a coaching staff, tried to find that sweet spot where we try to give them a sound foundation and some structure.”
Or just add Crosby. On the night that Crosby returned to the lineup, the Penguins converted on two of their four power-play opportunities. The second goal was a credit to Malkin’s wicked shot and a grimy screen from Patric Hornqvist in front.
But still, the unit looked and felt different with Crosby on the ice.
“I just think it’s so much more dynamic,” Sullivan said. “It gives you one more elite player that sees the ice so well.”
Sullivan pointed to so many areas where Crosby will help spark the power play. Zone entries. Decisionmaking. Faceoffs. But there’s one area in particular.
“I don’t think there’s a better guy around the net, whether he’s off to the side or he’s coming from below the goal line,” Sullivan said.
“He can make those low plays as good as anybody in the game.”
The Penguins knew the power play would need to evolve with Phil Kessel gone. But they couldn’t have expected that the injury bug would bite such a big chunk out of the unit.
Malkin, Crosby, Rust, Hornqvist and Kris Letang made up the five-man unit during the dominant, 7-3 win Tuesday night against the visiting Wild.
Those five players also could be considered five of the biggest injuries this season.
Malkin missed the first month with a lower-body injury. Rust missed a month after blocking a shot with his hand in the final preseason game. Hornqvist has spent two separate stints on injured reserve. Letang missed eight games.
(Not to mention Jake Guentzel, who was originally supposed to spend his first year with the top unit, is likely done for at least the remainder of the regular season. And Justin Schultz, who played with the top unit on day one of training camp, is spending his second prolonged stint on injured reserve).
But with Crosby back, the Penguins power-play unit is about as healthy as it has been all season. It’s finally time to see what it can do.