Make no mistake about it, the Detroit Red Wings’ penalty kill had as bad a night as imaginable in Thursday's 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers. Detroit’s penalty kill stopped just one of the four power plays it faced, allowing three goals on its first three kills in the span of just 114 seconds.
“100% special teams,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said after the loss. “The outburst was obviously their power play goals, which was three of them to extend the lead. Big part of the game, we didn't execute, I mean that was it. There were some things within our five on five (game) that we can take away from this that are fairly positive, but this game got away from us on special teams.”
But the penalty kill trouble runs a little deeper for Detroit. The unit has allowed five goals on 14 penalty kills, a 64.3% rate that ranks third from last in the NHL. Four of those goals came against New York's top power play, three of which came in that one really bad outing Thursday.
Naturally, Detroit’s goal is to improve that penalty kill, even if the Rangers are one of the top power play teams. And in practice Friday afternoon, the Red Wings spent their usual amount of time working on special teams. But fixing the penalty kill isn’t as simple as taking more reps.
For a situational unit where success is tied so much to reads and instincts, there is only so much that can be simulated directly on the ice. And even when it can, that practice time is also used to coach other special teams that limit what teams can actually do.
There’s a constant tug of war between practicing the penalty kill and the power play with the full complement of players. A number of the best players play on both units — for instance, captain Dylan Larkin or defenseman Moritz Seider — and this makes for a tricky decision of where to place them in practice. On one hand, you want them to practice the PK, but you also need them to construct a good enough power play to simulate good enough reps to be worthwhile.
“One's not more important than the other, but that's just how it shakes out,” forward Michael Rasmussen explained Friday. Lalonde expressed a similar message. “We’ve always had that balance. It’s easy to rep power play a lot of times. You lose a little bit of getting your reps and your routes on the penalty kill.”
In practice Friday, this push and pull showed as players such as Larkin, or even recent call-up Marco Kasper, flip-flopped between the sides of special teams scrimmages. Even then, these reps are less about memorizing options and structure than really learning how to react to what the power play is doing. Other than designated paths for skaters to get into the overall PK structure, these units are so dependent on reading and reacting that it is harder to teach by rote repetition like one might find in other specific areas — D-zone breakouts or transition structure, for example, as the Red Wings practiced Friday. Lalonde mentioned that his team will spend even more time practicing special teams at Saturday’s morning skate in Nashville.
It’s difficult to bounce back from an off night as a penalty kill because failure casts doubt on the instincts inherent in the position. Lalonde spoke to this after Thursday’s brutal result, saying “We just got slow on it, You get a little gun shy when you lose some confidence in your penalty kill and you lose your pace. … Again, I just thought we got a little slow with our pace, a little slow with our rotation, and gave them a little time to move the puck around the perimeter and get their looks.”
This timidity Lalonde spoke of did show up against the Rangers. Both Monday in New York and Thursday in Detroit, the Rangers scored their first power play goal immediately off a faceoff. The Red Wings’ confidence visibly deteriorated, and one could see penalty killers play passively against New York’s structure. In fairness, the Rangers didn’t stumble so much to present many opportunities for Detroit to be decisive and make a shorthanded play. But largely, the unit was flat-footed and pensive, two traits that allowed New York even more room to exert its dominance. Red Wings forward J.T. Compher addressed this after the game, saying that the PK plays better when it plays aggressive.
The object for Detroit is to gather its confidence and improve on the fly. It cannot afford another disastrous outing, whether that came against a top power play or not. Much like their game as a whole, the Red Wings will be looking for a much better response starting Saturday in Nashville.
