
SAN JOSE – There weren’t a whole lot of things that went right for the Sharks last season, but the power play was on that short list. With a loaded up top unit featuring the two highest scoring players in franchise history, the two leading scorers on last year’s team, and one of most talented offensive defensemen in the league helped the Sharks to the sixth-ranked power play in the NHL.
With an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” philosophy, new coach Pete DeBoer is apparently leaving that unit of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns together, as the club focused primarily on special teams play on Thursday at Sharks Ice ahead of their final two preseason games.
Couture said: “Obviously we’ve been together awhile, and things have gone generally pretty good over our careers together. When we’re at our best, I think we’re one of the best power plays in the league. We’ve got to have a good year, though.”
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“Historically they’ve had a great power play here, and a well coached power play,” DeBoer said. “That’s not something we’re spending a ton of time on. There’s other areas we want to fix first.”
From day one, DeBoer has mentioned five-on-five play and the penalty kill as the two main areas the Sharks have to improve upon after finishing 24th and 25th, respectively, in those vital metrics.
One of the reasons the Sharks struggled in those areas, though, may have been psychological in relation to the power play. DeBoer agreed that last season’s team may have been waiting around for the opposition to take a penalty before really bearing down and trying to put the puck in the net. In fact, he even saw that a bit in Tuesday’s 2-1 preseason win over the Canucks, when the Sharks were somewhat lethargic in the second half.
“You’re always looking for an identity, and I feel the identify of our team can’t be a great power play team,” DeBoer said. “That’s a piece of it, but our identity has to be bigger than that. When I look back at last year’s team I saw some of that, and I saw some of that the other night [vs. Vancouver]. We looked like we were playing, waiting for a power play. We can’t do that.”
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Regarding last season, Couture said: “You’re sitting on the bench and not getting much going five-on-five, you’re thinking we need to get on the power play and get some scoring chances, which obviously we’re looking to change this year. We’re looking to do some damage five-on-five. All the best teams are successful five-on-five.”
Still, having a strong power play will be essential, and the Sharks could have used more from their second unit last season. Only 12 of the Sharks’ 55 power play goals last season came from someone not on the top unit, and at one point the second unit had just one goal in a 34-game stretch.
Against the Canucks on Tuesday and again on Thursday in practice, the second unit consisted of forwards Tomas Hertl, Joel Ward and Tommy Wingels and the defense pair of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun.
If the Sharks have truly improved their forward depth, the results should show with this group, whoever it may be.
“You just need two units that can go,” Ward said. “If you have two units that can score it’s very effective. It pushes teams back a little bit more, you can’t worry about one unit or one or two players.”
The units are different, too, according to Ward. While the top unit is more likely to produce a tic-tac-toe highlight reel goal, Ward's group is more meat-and-potatoes.
“They have Jumbo’s line, so they’ve been playing together for a while and are very creative. They’ve had pretty good chemistry together.
“For our group, it’s just kind of keep it simple and once we get that chemistry going we’ll have a few more options. Right now it’s just simplifying things, and getting pucks going to the net and capitalizing.”