Reply To: A little help with my power play

[hockeygod]

My Master's was based on Bjorn Kinding's work. He took PP stats from the 1991 World Championships in Turku Finland. There were 100 analyzed PP's – 28 goals were scored (0.78%).

The summary numbers indicate success % for the different plays:

Half Boards 4%
On the Rush 8 %
End boards 13%
Points 75%

To score 17 goals from the point, the teams only gave up puck control a total of 13 times.

To score a single goal initiated from the half boards, it needed a total of 31 losses of puck control!

Knowing that puck control is one main source of success and a team can only afford to lose the puck once or twice per PP, it will take 15 pp's to score one goal this way. In other words, if your PP is built on plays from the half boards, you shouldn't expect a better average than 6.6%!

On the PP, the plays from the points produce:

61-75% of all goals;
67% of all first class scoring chances;
76% of all second class scoring chances, and;
23% of all puck control losses.

To create a scoring chance, the player on the point has these 4 BEST options:

Shoot or pass from an area straight in front of the net (between the faceoff dots):

1. on net;
2. to create a rebound ;
3. for a tip in and;
4. on a screened goalie.

The most and best scoring chances are produced by a point play from an area straight in front of the net (between the faceoff dots). (Bjorn removed 4 questionable goals and added an unclassifiable goal to the PP category) Ultimately, point shots from between the dots were the source of 110 out of 188 scoring chances and 15 out of 28 PP goals… or 59% of all PP scoring chances and 54% of all PP goals are initiated by a point play from between the faceoff dots. The importance that the point plays in between the dots is tremendous!

So to summarize, all you have to do to achieve an effective PP is:

Collectively control the puck … move the puck to the point … have players screening in front of the net… and SHOOT! How simple is that?

BUT… as seen below, how much time should one worry about / actually practice the PP when compared to even strength situations… and all the potential times for TRANSITIONS to occur? You be the judge – and allocate your practice time (and coaching worry) proportionately … errrrr I mean wisely!!!

—–

From an earlier, related post on transition:

https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/forums/topic/statistics-used-for-critical-areas-on-the-ice/

A few quotes from Bjorn:

"In top international play, for instance the final game of the 1994 World Cup, puck possession changed from one team to the other 7.7 times per minute. There's just no time to get the whole team 100 percent into defending before there's a chance to attack again… you are constantly playing "transition hockey" "

"In 1990, I studied and analyzed the transition in 'modern' ice hockey. The study included games from the World Cup Pools A and B, the Swiss and German playoffs and the NHL. The result showed that 60 percent of all goals were scored on the transition, which means, that almost three times as many goals are scored on transition as on the power play (23 percent). But how many teams practice transition three times as much as they practice the power play?"

"If we focus on play with equal numbers of players on both sides, then 88 percent of all goals are scored on transitions… 94 percent of all first class scoring chances are created on transitions."

"…if you want to be good in the game of hockey you have to be great in the game of transition."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."