How to stop the Oilers power play? Here's what some of the NHL's all-time defensive minds say

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EDMONTON — Let it be noted that the Los Angeles Kings had the No. 2 penalty kill in the NHL this season.

Tops in the Western Conference.

So what the Edmonton Oilers are doing to them right now, going 8-for-15 with the man advantage through four games in their first-round series … well, don't just take my word for how impressive it is.

Consider these one-liners I received when I asked some of the NHL's all-time great defensive minds a simple question: How would you defend this Oilers power play?

"I don't know if I have an answer for that," six-time Selke Trophy winner Patrice Bergeron said. "Holy moly."

"Don't take penalties," Jack Adams Award-winning coach Dave Tippett said chuckling.

"It's a good reason to not be coaching," Hockey Hall of Fame coach Ken Hitchcock quipped.

"When they're clicking, it's 'Hope the goalie's great' lol," coach Gerard Gallant joked via text message.

"Best way to stop it is to stay out of the penalty box," Stanley Cup-winning coach Craig Berube said.

Sensing a trend here?

But short of staying out of the box and having your goalie turn into Dominik Hasek or Patrick Roy, there are surely things teams can do to limit the damage. Right?

The challenge is daunting.

You've got Leon Draisaitl's killer one-timer from the low side. Evan Bouchard and the Bouch Bomb are up top. Zach Hyman is a master on the backdoor. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is whipping that puck around. And then there's some guy named Connor McDavid, flying around, willing to beat you with a shot or a pass.

Gulp.

"That's the issue. There's so many threats," said Bergeron, one of the smartest two-way players in NHL history. "Usually it's like pick your poison, right? Like what do you think is the most dangerous shot? Or usually it's seams. You don't want teams to seam you. Then if you take the seams away, they're going to use the low play or use the shot from the point, which — (Bouchard's) usually pretty accurate and usually gets it through."

Three-time Selke Trophy winner Guy Carbonneau also chuckled when asked the question.

"I tried to read patterns and tendencies," the Hockey Hall of Famer said. "When you have one player in particular that you're trying to read his tendencies, that's a lot easier than when you've got five players to worry about.

"You know what McDavid can do. You know what Draisaitl can do. Both of them can pass or shoot and are not afraid to do it. But now with Hyman in front, and Bouchard is having a great season, it makes everything complicated."

Five scoring options, including No. 97.

"You have one guy that's out of this world," said Carbonneau, whose defensive work on Wayne Gretzky in the '93 Stanley Cup Final helped the Habs win their 24th title. "He's by far the best player on the planet. He's got all the tools."

And McDavid is in constant motion.

"With his ability to skate to elude people, that's where it creates so many problems," Berube said. "He gets winding it up and gets moving around, it's difficult. You lose coverage and you're wondering who you should take. It's very dangerous. It's hard to stop."

Echoed Tippett: "It's not as if the PK can say, 'Let's do this.' Because it's just coming at you from all directions too fast. He reads and reacts. You might think you've got him covered over here, and he goes a different direction. Now what are you going to do?"

"In a fraction of a second, (McDavid and Draisaitl) can go from one to the other and just make a great play that was not there. For a penalty killer, that's so hard."

Whether planned or adlibbed off a broken play, the movement is mesmerizing.

"Their movement of the guy with the puck creates the change in angles, and that's where they catch you on all their seams," Hitchcock said. "They move with the puck, they wait for the seam to open up, then they attack.

"They're not predictable, either. Their stick position is not predictable. You have to make a decision on which part of the ice you're going to defend."

So what do you do?

Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid run the NHL's most lethal power play. (Justin Berl / Getty Images)

Ideas, anyone?

"You try and shade their top two options: Draisaitl back side and the big shot from the top, Bouchard," Gallant said. "Send pressure at them on their entry and force as much as possible. Once they establish control, keep your four penalty killers tight and eliminate seam passes.

"But good luck. They're highly skilled, as you know."

Hitchcock, who saw the infancy of this power play as Oilers head coach several years ago, broke it down this way:

"First of all, they win all the faceoffs (Draisaitl) because they start the power play on the left dot. So they win all the faceoffs. And they have a single (zone) entry. Connor is the single entry. They don't double-enter it. They single-enter it. So right now, it's a big advantage for them because they can enter with control, they don't turn it over and they start with the puck all the time.

"I've seen everybody try everything against it. Really aggressive. Really passive. But it's all based on the guy with the puck having movement. The guy with the puck isn't standing still. That's an easy thing to say and a hard thing to do. You just know it's going to be a goal when you see Connor or Leon start to skate around with the puck. You know the angles are going to change and there's going to be seams and gaps.

"The decision you have to make is: When and where do you pressure? It's not an easy decision to make. I know when I'm watching it on TV, and I'm sure other people feel the same way, you can just feel the goal coming."

Yes, we've all had that feeling watching that power play.

"You can't coach against it because there's an element of road hockey to it," said Tippett, who also saw this coming first-hand as Oilers head coach a few years ago. "That's a great line from (Oilers assistant coach) Glen Gulutzan about it. You have your set-up, and all of sudden it's road hockey, and there's nobody better at playing road hockey than Connor McDavid. Meaning it's freelancing. There's no plan in place. You just have to try and defend it. Read and react."

Bergeron agreed.

"The hardest thing, to me, is when a power play is unpredictable and they don't really play specific positions," he said. "Draisaitl likes to be low, but then it seems like they like to interchange a lot, too. And they never set up only on one side. They use both sides to set up, which to me makes it even more difficult.

"In your scouting report, you'll be watching videos with the rest of your penalty killers and be like, 'OK, usually this is how they set up so this is what we're going to do. You'll take care of this passing lane, the forward on this side will take care of that seam,' and so on. We'll talk about passing lanes and their tendencies and whatnot, but in this situation, there's none. They're freelancing, and they're really like playing different positions, interchangeable and all that. So it's really, really hard to read.

"You really have to use your instincts and keep your head on a swivel and make sure: this is what I'm reading here, and I'm going to try to take away the most dangerous shot and give up the shot that I guess you hope the goalie wants the most. Which usually are the ones from the half-wall and it's a wrister, you know. It's not a one-timer or a seam."

Slowing Connor McDavid down on the power play is a challenge. (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Zone entries

As Hitchcock noted, McDavid's ability to carry the puck with speed for zone entries is a huge part of all of this. So many teams struggle with that on power plays.

"It might be easy from up above to think, 'Why don't you stand up on him?'" Tippett said. "Well, try getting down there and doing that with him coming right at you."

"What a weapon to have to have him and his speed and also have Draisaitl and his smarts and how he can carry the puck," Bergeron added.

Still, Carbonneau said, one must try to close the gap as much as possible on McDavid's entries.

"But he comes at you," said the former Habs captain and head coach. "It's like (Nathan) MacKinnon. It's the same thing. Not only are they fast, they're freaking strong. Even if you try to step up on them, either he's going to go by or you have to hook him or slash him."

"A one-man drop, and he flies up through the neutral zone," said Berube of McDavid. "He's just so quick and his agility is incredible. It's hard. What we've done in the past against it, our F1 on our forecheck on the PK, we should just allow Bouchard or whoever it was to carry the puck up. We just allowed them to attack us four-on-three a lot of times and take McDavid away. We didn't allow the drop to him.

"But you've got to have a really good three-man stand at that blue line or even inside that blue line and got to have real good sticks and discipline there."

Berube paused before adding, "I think against that power play, you want to try to frustrate them a little more up ice if you can."

More advice, please?

"Faceoffs become extremely important," said Bergeron, the king of faceoffs in his day. "Every time there's a bobbled puck, I would pressure and try to create stalls and create havoc."

Problem is, as Hitchcock noted above, Draisaitl wins most of his faceoffs: 83.3 percent on the power play so far this postseason.

"They start with the puck, and that's when they get teams on their heels," Bergeron said. "Because now, they're facing you and they have so many options.

"To me, you try to collapse a little bit more and take away the middle. You can't spread out. You have to be working as a unit of four and make sure you stay tight. As soon as you get out of position or someone gets beat, that's when they smell blood."

Added Carbonneau: "When you have all those options in the middle, you have to try and keep that box really tight — and hope that your goalie can make the save."

Even over the phone, you could feel Hitchcock shrugging his shoulders as he said this:

"There's no real easy way to defend this. You've got to decide which part of it you're going to defend and which part of it you're going to give up. Some people defend the weak part of the ice — the back door and everything. Some people pressure the puck. But, I've got to tell you, I don't really know the right answer. All I know is that everybody has got to be on the same page of when you're going to pressure and when you're going to back off.

"If there's any hesitation, they seam it right through you."

Berube said the key in his mind is not to let McDavid "fly around there with speed."

"If you cut him off, it does open things up a little bit (elsewhere), but if you cut him off and make him turn back on the strong side, now you're staying in structure a little bit more," he said. "I also think you've got to take the most dangerous people away. I get that Hyman has scored a lot of goals around the net, but I think you've almost got to leave him to your goalie a lot of times. You can only take so many players and options away.

"Get in that diamond formation and take away Draisaitl and McDavid — what flank he's on. Getting out on these guys and pushing 'em outside the dots as much as you can, that's key. But your goalie is going to have to make saves."

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Kings no slouches

The amazing thing about the Oilers' PP this series is you've got Selke Trophy winner Anze Kopitar, Norris Trophy winner Drew Doughty and one of the league's top defensive forwards Phillip Danault on the other side.

"Danault is so smart defensively, and Kopy obviously, so yeah, it's pretty incredible what the Oilers are doing," Bergeron said. "Kudos to them."

Said Hitchcock: "L.A. did a really good job of killing the penalty (in Game 4), but then they gave up the (Bouch) bomb. Like, it would be different if the guy at the top wasn't a threat to score. But Bouchard is a threat to score every time."

The Bouchard power-play goal was all Edmonton needed in its 1-0 win Sunday.

"Your top forward has to understand that it's important he takes that away," Berube said. "He got a little deep for me on that play. … And I get it. I get it all. But if I was looking at the tape later, I'd say to him, 'You've got to hold your ground a little bit more on that play. You've got to get in that shooting lane.'

"You have to have great sticks and you've got to get some luck."

The penalty killer in question was Trevor Moore, who ended up chasing McDavid across but left himself too low, allowing Draisaitl to tee up Bouchard.

"They have some real good players that defend well," Berube added of the Kings. "They have good sticks. Yeah, it's tough. You got to try to be disciplined and stay out of the box the best you can."

Evan Bouchard had 35 power-play points in the regular season and has four in four playoff games. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

The architect

"This is a real credit to Glen Gulutzan," Hitchcock said. "He's been the architect of this power play since the day I got there (in 2018). He's a brilliant coach, just brilliant. He has a really good working relationship with those start players, so he's able to adapt quickly and they're able to adapt with him."

The Oilers had the worst power play in the NHL in 2017-18 — despite McDavid winning the scoring title. Gulutzan arrived, took over the power play, and since then it has finished ninth, first, first, third, first and fourth. The Oilers have meanwhile had five head coaches in those six seasons.

In a piece from The Athletic's Oilers beat writer, Daniel Nugent-Bowman, a year ago, Gulutzan made it clear the fundamental philosophy of his changes to the power play was to make sure it ran through McDavid.

"I really didn't want to run the power play through a defenseman," Gulutzan said. "I'd rather get it into the hands of the most dynamic player in the world — and I want him to have motion."

Good idea!

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Mario memories

Hitchcock and Tippett, unsolicited and independent of each other, both brought up the early 1990s Pittsburgh Penguins power play as the closest thing to what they're seeing now with the Oilers.

"Their first unit was Jaromir Jagr, Kevin Stevens, Ron Francis, Mario Lemieux and either Larry Murphy or Paul Coffey," Hitchcock recalled. "That was my first sojourn into coaching at the NHL level (as an assistant with the Philadelphia Flyers). I was trying to eliminate that power play and it was not fun."

Tippett experienced it first as an opposing penalty killer with the Washington Capitals and then as part of the Penguins team in 1992-93.

"That was a hell of a power play," he said. "They made plays out of nothing. Basically, road hockey. The rebound comes out and you have somebody that just makes an amazing play that normal players don't think of."

Sounds familiar. So how did teams counter it then?

"Play four guys back around the net and let them shoot from outside," Tippett said. "And hope they didn't score."

Hope. A similar strategy to what teams have come up with against the Oilers.

"They're fun to watch," Bergeron said. "Let's be honest, it's pretty incredible to have those two guys on the same team."

Bergeron laughed.

"I'm also glad I don't have to defend against them."

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(Top photo of Trevor Moore skating away from an Oilers power-play goal celebration: Gina Ferazzi / Getty Images)