Special Teams: Part 1 - Power Play

Being successful at Powerplay Manager hockey is more than just winning games. If you look at all the strongest, most successful teams on PPM they are solid in all areas of the game, most importantly their special teams; powerplay and penalty kill. The success of your hockey teams special teams can have a deciding impact on the outcome of your games. Your Powerplay has the opportunity to capitalize on the man advantage and your Penalty Kill is responsible for protecting your net when you're a man down. These 2 situations are often key to your teams overall success.

Over the course of the next few days I will be posting a series of articles about special teams, explaining a few helpful tips that you may, or may not have thought of. I encourage you to leave comments (down the page) if you have any thoughts or suggestions.

Part 1: Power Play

A good powerplay should be one that is consistent. It doesn't have to score on every opportunity (would be nice though, wouldn't it?), it just has to score consistently every few chances. I am of the opinion that a good powerplay should score between 30% and 40% of the time, although anything over 20% is pretty resonable in the stronger leagues throughout PPM, especially against tougher teams.

So the big question is, what makes a good Powerplay?

Your powerplay unit consists of 5 players, who play the Wings, Center and Defense positions. This doesn't mean you need to play those particular players in those particular positions though. Much like real hockey teams around the world, some managers opt to play big shot forwards on the point position (defense position on the PP) to help increase the chance of goals from the Blue Line. In my experience a solid powerplay needs the following:

1) High Passing. This is essential for all players, especially your center. You need all of your guys to be able to cycle the puck during play, and passing is a key part of this.
2) High Technique. Similar to passing, your players technique will improve their passing, shooting and stick handling skill.
3) Big Shot / Offense. You want all your players to have good shooting skills, at least 50% of your players primary attribute.

Saying that, putting high offense, high shooting, high passing players is not enough.

Your Blue Liners:

You have 2 defense positions on your Powerplay. After speaking to a lot of successful managers, most of them concur that 2 defensive guys need to 100% compliment each other. In other words, if you only have 1 truly big shot defenseman, make sure the other guy on the blueline has very high passing. You've seen NHL games, most good NHL powerplays have 2 defenseman who compliment each other with passing & shooting. You need to make sure you big shooter has someone up there with him who can make the big pass right on his stick. If your big shot defenseman is also your big passer, think of putting a sniper / forward up there with him. Don't be afraid to try new things.

Your Forwards:

"He Shoots... He scores!" Great quote, but how do you make it happen? Your defenseman play a vital role in the powerplay, but your forwards can be the ones who start the sequense. It all starts with your center guy, who MUST be a top playmaker. By this I mean he needs to have very high technique and very high passing. His shooting attribute can be minimal, as your centers main role here is going to be setting up the rest of the guys. As for your wingers, think of them as primary scorers and secondary passers. By that i mean they will think shoot first, but MUST be able to make the passes in order to cycle the play. Most teams wingers have low(er) passing, so don't worry if your passing isn't high for these guys, but make sure they do have at least "some" passing. A solid powerplay winger needs to have high technique, high shooting, high offense, medium passing and medium aggression. The latter is to win puck battles and help screen the goalie.

Track Powerplays:

If you are really keen to improve your powerplay, you need to make sure you know how it currently performs. After each game write down how many PP opportunities you had, and how many goals. Also record those against you, as PK stats are just as important, as i'll discuss tomorrow. Also take note of the team you played against and whether they are stronger, weaker or equal to you. You may play 10 games against rookie teams and have 60% PP and then 10 games against equal teams and only have 15% PP. The latter is actually the more accurate figure, so by tracking the strength of your opponent you can get a better idea. You don't need to track full star/puck rating, just write down in your own words how good they are. I personally rank my opponents like this: -2 (much worse) -1 (worse) 0 (equal) 1 (stronger) 2 (much stronger). It's not accurate, but gives me an idea for my own record keeping. I have also started collecting star/puck ratings of my opponents.

Test, Test More & Test Again:

As with everything, you might need to make changes every few games to "tweak" your powerplay. Don't be afraid to change players and try new things.

That's it... now go out there, draw a penalty and get your powerplay in action!