Executing, defending power play often determines outcome

Defense wins Super Bowls and pitching wins World Series, but just what wins a Lord Stanley's Cup and the collegiate hockey equivalent?

Hockey players and coaches agree that there is a link between winning games and a team's success on the power play and penalty kill. It is very difficult to win a championship without a stellar power-play unit.

As of last weekend, the men's hockey team's power play had a success rate of over 27 percent overall and over 31 percent in the Eastern Coast Athletic Conference. Junior forward Patrick Neundorfer is eighth in the country in power-play goals with five thus far. These numbers make Princeton one of the top power-play units in the nation. So how do the Tigers do it?

First, the basics. A team is awarded a power play when an opposing player commits a penalty — such as hooking, tripping, boarding or spearing, among others. Depending on the severity of the penalty, the power play can last between two and five minutes. A power play that is the result of a minor penalty will end if the team with the extra man scores. In college, but not in the NHL, major penalties last five minutes no matter what.

"The idea of a power play is to use your player advantage to create scoring opportunities," sophomore forward Grant Goeckner-Zoeller said. "A successful power play generally shoots a lot. The power-play team should have a better chance of getting to a rebound."

Offensively, the keys to the power play are patience and puck control. The team with the numerical advantage should be able to pass the puck around the rink crisply, forcing a defender to attack the puck and therefore leaving another teammate open to take the shot.

In order to find the open man, most teams use the umbrella offense on a power play. The player with the best shot positions himself at the top of the offensive zone, just inside the blueline. Two more skaters set up outside the circles on either side of the zone. A fourth player camps out in front of the net trying to create confusion, fighting for rebounds in front of the net, redirecting shots from the top of the offensive zone and screening the goaltender. The final player on the power play, the center, circles around the front of the net as well.

In addition to the umbrella, Princeton also uses what is called an overload on the power play. The key to this offensive scheme is sending three players to one side of the ice and keeping the puck on this "overloaded" side of the rink, making tactical use of the man-up situation.

"It is the same as an umbrella but turned on its side," Goeckner-Zoeller said, "and thus the same goals exist."

From the other side of the puck, the aim is exactly the opposite. Penalty killers try to stop goals from being scored in usually one of two ways — the patient approach or the aggressive approach.

"[They do it] either by positioning themselves in a conservative box to limit good shots by the opposition," Goeckner-Zoeller said, "or by pressuring the opposing players to force them to turn the puck over. Most teams' systems rest somewhere on the scale between these strategies."

The goaltender's job on the penalty kill, besides stopping the pucks shot at the net, is to try and control dump-ins (when the man-up team flicks the puck deep into the zone and chases it). The team on the power play often uses a dump-in to change up tired skaters, and, if the goalie can control the puck before they get it back, the penalty-killing team can ice the puck, creating valuable time, or even go on the offense itself in search of the elusive shorthanded goal.