Ex-Coyotes Coach on How MacLean Will Impact Sharks Power Play | SJHN+

In 2017-18 and 2018-19, John MacLean led the Arizona Coyotes power play to 26th-place finishes in both seasons.

That’s the man running the San Jose Sharks power play now?

But ex-Coyotes video coach Steve Peters of PHNX Sports, who worked with MacLean on Rick Tocchet’s staff, doesn’t think you should judge a book by its cover.

“The power play is really dependent on the personnel that you can put on the ice. But without that Alexander Ovechkin one-timer from the top of the circle and having a secondary threat somewhere else? Unfortunately, during those years, the Coyotes didn’t have that weapon,” Peters shared. “It wasn’t a coaching issue, it was a personnel issue more than anything. I don’t want to sound like I’m disparaging the players on that team. It’s just, you need that danger. Someone on the ice to open up somebody else.

“As Phil Kessel came, now you’ve got a threat. Now you move Jacob Chychrun to the top. And now he’s a threat.”

In 2019-20 — Kessel’s first season in the desert — Arizona’s PP rose to 18th. Last year — Chychrun’s breakout campaign — the Coyotes’ man advantage crossed into above-average, to 13th in the NHL.

Another way to underscore Peters’s point? To start the 2018-19 season, Arizona trotted out Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Richard Panik, Vinnie Hinostroza, Clayton Keller, and Derek Stepan as their top power play unit. By the end of the year, Ekman-Larsson and Keller were joined by 20-year-old Chychrun, eternal reclamation project Alex Galchenyuk, and rookie Conor Garland.

That season, the Coyotes were paced by Galchenyuk and Brad Richardson with just 19 goals. They were 27th in the league in scoring.

MacLean wasn’t working with the Wayne Gretzky-era Edmonton Oilers, to say the least.

It’s worth noting too that the San Jose Sharks PP bears zero resemblance to Gretzky’s Oilers — Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, and company finished 29th in the NHL last year.

But maybe a change of philosophy will help San Jose’s power play? So what is MacLean’s philosophy?

Peters predicts what to expect from the Sharks man advantage under MacLean: