With Jamie Drysdale set to miss time and the Flyers power play already sitting at a fledgling 15.0%, tied for 31st in the league, nothing has gone right for the man advantage unit. Regardless of personnel, tactics, or the heroics of Trevor Zegras, the Flyers’ power play has once again been an anchor around the neck of a team that has been pretty damn good at even strength and on the penalty kill.
Zegras is the only player to have double digits points on the power play, and his six goals give him the honor of being the only Flyer to have scored more than two power play goals on the season. Outside of Zegras, who just arrived in the offseason, nobody else on the roster seems to be finding a groove with the man advantage, not Matvei Michkov, not Owen Tippett, not even Travis Konecny. Anyone who has been with the Flyers or in their organization for at least a non-trivial amount of time, seems to be completely unable to find a rhythm with an extra man.
It’s been this way for years now, and seems to be more of a systemic failure rather than something that you can pin on one specific coaching staff or management team. Since the 2020-21 season, the Flyers have amassed a power play percentage of 14.7%, good for worst in the league by a wide margin, and over a percentage point behind the 31st ranked Anaheim Ducks.
Despite the Flyers seemingly being able to generate some sustainable offense and cycle patterns at five-on-five this year, they have simply lacked any ability to carry that momentum over, bafflingly, to when they get a chance to play 5-on-4.
And with how hopeless it’s seemed over the past decade, there’s really only one realistic lever left to pull that hasn’t been tried, and it’s the vaunted five forward setup.
What is going wrong on the Flyers’ power play could be fixed
With the Flyers struggling to enter the zone with speed and subsequently not really ever getting set up in any meaningful way once they enter the zone, they need to maximize the amount of confident and quick puck handlers they have on the ice at any given moment. Up until this point, they’ve struggled to really look comfortable in the offensive end, and that has led to them relying on a steady diet of point shots to try and offset the lack of side-to-side movement. It’s resulted in the Flyers shot map looking like this:
Compare this to the best power play in the league, the Edmonton Oilers. You’ll notice that big vacuum of orange in the slot that extends across basically the entire “home plate” area. As well, the point shots that the Oilers get are much more concentrated in one area, and as a whole a lot closer to the net.
It’s almost as if the Oilers have specific plays and offensively dominant players that they purposefully try to use to their advantage repeatedly, instead of just hoping that once you get into the offensive zone, you find the open man or get a rebound that results in a high danger chance.
The defensemen aren’t working, so add another forward
As of now, the Flyers have failed to really incorporate a defenseman into their power play structure outside of point shots through traffic. Cam York leads Flyer defensemen in expected goals on the power play, with a measly 0.8 over the course of 72 minutes at man advantage. Jamie Drysdale and Travis Sanheim both sit in the same boat, and it’s clear that the defensemen, up to this point, don’t really have a role the same way they do at even strength.
Instead of just trying the same thing in different fonts, the Flyers should make the move to a five-forward system. Place one or two of the three defensive minded centers on the roster on the unit if you like, but make the first unit a hornet’s nest of constant passing and moving. Get Konecny, Zegras, Michkov, Tippett, and a center out there, prioritize movement over just searching for the best sort of shot you can find, and just see what your best forwards can create in an offensive zone setting.
Having multiple one timer threats while also allowing players to crash the net from the weak side may be the answer to getting the power play off the ground, and even if it doesn’t, it’s at least a way to shake things up in the interim.
The answer certainly isn’t dropping someone like Michkov for Carl Grundstrom or another surging bottom-sixer. It isn’t allowing Rasmus Ristolainen to launch point shots through three bodies while hoping it gets through. Real, drastic change is needed, and it might need to come in an unorthodox form to work.
