The Philadelphia Flyers are finding some success early in the season. It’s not perfect and they’re not undefeated or anything, but they have been able to earn a win over the defending Stanley Cup champions and have not looked terrible against the team most people expect to win their division. But one thing is staying consistent compared to last season: An unsuccessful power play.
With just a 10 percent success rate on the man advantage so far this season — it’s so bad that they have allowed as many goals as they have scored while on the power play through the first three games — head coach Rick Tocchet and his staff have decided to make a change.
At practice on Wednesday morning, the one main change that he has made to his lineup, other than adding a returning Cam York to the blue line, is a minor tweak of the power-play units. Trevor Zegras has been demoted to the secondary unit, while Sean Couturier takes his place on the first.
That leaves the Flyers’ power-play units heading into Thursday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets, looking like this:
Sean Couturier
Owen Tippett — Travis Konecny — Matvei Michkov
Jamie Drysdale
Noah Cates
Tyson Foerster — Trevor Zegras — Bobby Brink
Travis Sanheim
This switch of centermen leaves a whole lot of questions to be answered and lowers the possibility of us seeing something very cool happen from the end of Zegras’s stick. But what else could we come to expect from these new units?
Focal point shift on top power-play unit
There’s only one puck to go around and while Zegras has been able to find some low-level production on the top unit, with two shots on goal and four attempts to his name during the nine or so minutes he was out there (oh, and he got an assist too on the lone Flyers’ power-play goal this season), it makes sense to change things up for the top unit.
By bringing Zegras out and Couturier in, there is a much more traditional set-up with the veteran center as a net-front presence instead of the previous five players trying to work more peripherally and will their way into the dangerous areas.
Now, the puck should belong more to the likes of Michkov as he looks to get going — and potting a couple points or getting a feel for the puck during a man advantage is much easier than trying to get up to game speed at 5-on-5. Tippett should continue to be the trigger man, as he currently leads the team in shots on goal on the power play, with five and leads with six shot attempts, as well.
Trevor Zegras unlocking more on second unit
Tocchet has, so far, split the unit’s ice-time fairly evenly. Jamie Drysdale leads the team with 10:01 TOI and Sean Couturier has the lowest amount of minutes with just 5:06 TOI. But still, it’s not as top-unit dominant as we have seen previously. It’s not a substantial demotion for Zegras, but more like getting a fresh look and developing potential chemistry with new teammates — if we want to spin it a certain way.
While having Michkov and Zegras on the same unit had us drooling, there is logic to making the 24-year-old centerman the main distributor and much more responsible to drive scoring chances on the second unit with the existing Noah Cates line and Sanheim.
Could we see a potential Foerster-Zegras partnership blooming? Theoretically, by inserting Zegras on a unit that will forecheck and cycle the shorthanded unit until they can barely even make one single skating stride, the naturally talented forward will have much more open ice to work his magic. No one in the top unit was really working hard to clear space for each other, other than trying to move the puck around the zone at a higher pace. The second unit will do so with their skating and board work, for then Zegras to maybe take advantage of a dogged penalty kill.
Tocchet wanting fewer shorthanded odd-man rushes
Maybe instead of us hypothesizing what the thought process is to make this change, or what we could see play out on the ice, we have the coach himself explain his decision?
After practice on Wednesday, Rick Tocchet told the media in pretty plain language why he decided to have Couturier up on the top unit. Via NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jordan Hall, Tocchet wants Couturier to be a more responsible, two-way force on the top unit to prevent 2-on-1 shorthanded rushes going the other way. By adding the veteran center, there is hope that possession becomes much more solid and shorthanded scoring chances will be limited.
Tocchet also added that Couturier brings a higher level of faceoff ability, especially compared to Zegras, as he aims to truly keep possession in the offensive zone.
While we won’t know how successful this change is until we see it play out on the ice, there is clearly thought put into the new look for the power play and we could see a world where it gets slightly better. Maybe we could ask for a 15 percent success rate, or is that too greedy?
