Building a Better Power Play

Knobler:

Fixing the power play was the theme of today’s practice. In the latter part of practice John Anderson tried a look he hadn’t used. He moved Ilya Kovalchuk to the point, paired him with Ron Hainsey and added Slava Kozlov to the rest of Kovalchuk’s line (Todd White and Bryan Little) as forwards. I’ve seen Kovalchuk rotate up to the blue line with Hainsey going low, but this was the first time I saw a power play unit with four forwards.

The Thrashers are 0-for-7 on the power play in their last two games, the overtime loss at Florida and Tuesday night’s 4-2 loss to Minnesota.

We could use a better power play. I'm sure you've all noticed that in our power plays thus far Kovy has been positioned all over the place instead of at his traditional perch at the point, waiting for one-timers. I like Kovy getting into the thick of the action, and he scores excellent goals that way at even strength (like the one he scored last night on a wondrous feed from Bryan Little), but the official editorial position of the Blueland Chronicle is that the Czar needs his throne. Keep him at the one-timer perch.

We have confidence that J.A. will do the right thing. I was actually still quite impressed with our offense last night; we had the Wild scurrying around their own zone frightened at several points. But our lack of delivery on the power play DEFINITELY needs to be corrected, and it's a good thing John Anderson is trying to do just that. Like I've said a million times, one of the reasons I think Anderson is a fine coach is because he thinks in terms of details and particulars.

For instance, during both this summer's blogger summit and the town hall meeting, he said that he would reduce the team's losing streaks by examining the immediate problem at hand and trying to tweak it as soon as possible.

In other words: If you're a losing team, try to have a winning record. To get a winning record, reduce your losing streaks. To reduce your losing streaks, win games one by one. To win the game, score more goals. To score more goals, score on the power play. If the power play isn't working, FIX THE POWER PLAY!

It's very simple. Hey, look at these McCain-Palin supporters:


And before Razor points it out: Yes, that report IS from the English language version of that sinister bearded Saladin of TV networks, Al Jazeera itself. It's interesting the American media finds none of this worth reporting.