CANDIDATES FOR PENGUINS GM
Good puck possession, careful line changes key to producing wins
NEW YORK — Give the captain his credit, first of all.
Sidney Crosby is the one, not surprisingly, who netted both overtime game-winners for the Penguins this season, including Saturday night against the New York Rangers to complete their 54 comeback.
But really, that goal and the
Penguins success at 3-on-3 should be tracked back to what happened much earlier.
Let’s start at the beginning. When the NHL first introduced 3on-3 overtime in 2015, it was fast, loose and fun. Teams traded oddman rushes on either end of the ice. It didn’t take long before a goalie was left hanging out to dry.
This style is electric if you’re a fan. But not very smart if you’re trying to actually capture two points. Rather than gambling that your 2-on-1 will produce a goal and their 2-on-1 won’t, teams began to rethink the extra period.
The strategy behind the overtime evolved, with two key elements at the crux of the conversation: Puck possession and crisp line changes.
These two elements go handin-hand. Take Saturday, for example.
The goal was as much — if not more — about Evgeni Malkin winning a key puck battle along the boards to help the Penguins regroup back to center ice and get three more bodies out there.
And it wouldn’t have been possible had Jason Zucker not won
another battle off a shot attempt and John Marino hadn’t fended off the Rangers’ pressure to help Crosby and Bryan Rust hop over the boards.
By the time Crosby hopped on the ice, the three Rangers were gassed. In total, the Penguins essentially had three short shifts to the Rangers one.
It was an absolute clinic how to play 3-on-3 hockey in 2021. For a large part of the season, this has been the trend.
Through nine games, the Penguins have just a single win in regulation.
Yet, they are 5-3-1 in large part because they’re either playing well enough to win games in overtime or, at worst, playing smart enough not to lose them.
They are 2-1 in games decided in overtime and 2-0 in shootouts.
Again, it all comes back to two concepts: Puck possession. Crisp changes.
Typically, the number of shots attempted is a good proxy for possession. In this department, the Penguins have controlled 55% of the Corsi metric.
However, this proxy might be less significant in overtime, because shooting the puck, actually, isn’t always the best strategy.
More importantly, teams need to pick their spots and go for the highest-danger opportunities.
To make a basketball analogy, rather than playing like Mike D’Antoni’s Brooklyn offense that pushes the tempo and scores at volume, overtime hockey is becoming more like the University of Virginia’s slow, methodical offense.
Move the puck, waiting for the best look, not the first one.
While the Penguins hold a slight end in shot share, a rough stopwatch measurement of the Penguins possession paints an even more striking picture. The Penguins have hogged the puck for a whopping 70plus percent of the overtime minutes.
The one time the Penguins failed to control more than at least 50% of possession time? Not surprisingly, their one overtime loss to the Boston Bruins.
Even that one, the Penguins really could have won if Kris Letang and Malkin didn’t botch a 3-on0 so badly and Marino didn’t turn the puck over in the neutral zone with just seconds left.
The possession time works hand-in-hand with line changes.
The Penguins try to manage shift lengths and prevent the situation that the Rangers found themselves in on Saturday. The
Penguins have averaged 5.4 shifts per overtime to their opponents 4.4.
Making sure tired bodies aren’t stuck on the ice is even more critical in overtime than during a normal 5-on-5 action.
Players have often noted that all that open ice makes every second more taxing than regulation. Not to mention, they’ve already played 60 competitive minutes by the time it reaches the extra period and teams shorten their bench significantly in overtime, deploying the same six forwards and three defensemen in overtime.
Now, not everyone is thrilled by the way 3-on-3 has evolved. After all, who doesn’t like to see Crosby and Alex Ovechkin trade odd-man rushes (other than Tristan Jarry)?
Some have proposed the idea of adding a shot clock to overtime or adding additional time so teams can’t be so patient. To this point, those ideas remain just ideas.
So the next time you see the Penguins pull the puck back out to center ice during overtime and you’re screaming at the TV for them to shoot, remember some tired defensemen might be hoping for the same thing.