Preview/Lines #3: What’s Working on Sharks’ Power Play?

What’s working with the San Jose Sharks power play?

How about everything? The Sharks are currently tied with tonight’s opponent, the Ottawa Senators, for the NHL lead with a 44.4 percent success rate.

Yet, San Jose Sharks head coach Bob Boughner still had his criticism for a PP that’s riding a wave right now.

“We were frustrated a little bit after the first two power plays [against Montreal]. Our entries weren’t clean and we threw some unforced errors, some pucks away. But we didn’t get rattled. We stayed composed,” Boughner shared. “We made some adjustments after the first period. We changed our breakout a little bit. We went from the double drop and we went to more of a speed breakout.”

This is the drop pass that Boughner is referring to – it’s a single drop pass with two forwards coming from behind with speed:

And here’s the speed breakout:

I mentioned the San Jose Sharks’ desire to simplify their power play going into this season – that also applies to entries. I wonder if those will be the two PP entries that we see from the Sharks moving forward.

What’s Different About Sharks Power Play? | SJHN+

Something else that I mentioned about the San Jose Sharks PP: They’re looking for shot quantity this year. They have it so far: Per Natural Stat Trick, they’re sixth in the NHL with 123.55 Shot Attempts Per 60 at 5-on-4.

Hockey tactics guru Jack Han, who just appeared on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast, alluded to that shot mentality in this power play breakdown video, made exclusively for SJHN:

Han also highlighted Nick Bonino’s net front contribution to the power play.

San Jose Sharks

Dahlen-Couture-Meier
Eklund-Hertl-Balcers
Nieto-Bonino-Labanc
Cogliano-Weatherby-Pederson

Ferraro-Burns
Middleton-Karlsson
Vlasic-Simek

Reimer

If Karlsson wants his 1st win in Ottawa, #SJSharks have the right man in goal: Reimer has beat the Sens more than any other team in his career, he's 15-6-3 versus them, one of only two teams that he's had double-digit wins against (12 wins vs. BUF) (HT @citizenkwarren)

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) October 21, 2021

Ottawa Senators

Per NHL.com:

Brady Tkachuk — Josh Norris — Drake Batherson
Nick Paul — Shane Pinto — Connor Brown
Tim Stutzle — Chris Tierney — Alex Formenton
Zach Sanford — Logan Shaw — Tyler Ennis

Thomas Chabot — Artem Zub
Michael Del Zotto — Nikita Zaitsev
Nick Holden — Josh Brown

Matt Murray

Where to Watch

Puck drop against Ottawa is 4:00 PM PT at Canadian Tire Center. Watch it live on NBC Sports Bay Area, TSN5, RDS2, and ESPN+. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.