INTRODUCTION
Objectives of PP Zone Entry:
· Get puck into OZ
· Keep/Recover control of puck once there
· Quickly get set up in formation
· Generate a dangerous rush chance
The first two are predictable, identical to what players intend to accomplish with zone entries at even strength, but the latter two — and especially the third — are unique to power plays.
A hockey power play actually quite closely resembles a half-court offense in basketball, or maybe more so a loose full-court press. The offensive team must devise a way to get the ball up court amidst loose but structured defenders. Then those players must find a way to create 2-on-1 matchups against defenders and find openings to strike. There are numerous set plays, both to advance the ball/puck up court/ice, and more yet when it comes to penetrating once in formation.
Overall, teams scored roughly 25% of their goals on the powerplay last year, despite the fact that less than 20% of total ice time was played with a team on the man-advantage.
IS PP A SEPARATE SKILL FROM 5-vs-5
In the analytical community, the most-cited metric for power-play quality is shooting rate.
The correlation between shooting rates 5-on-5 and 5-on-4 is 0.4.
With a correlation of 0.4 one could say there is a relationship between the two, but it isn’t particularly strong.
I think it's pretty clear that there is some skill component of the power play that is distinct from 5-on-5
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