A rare practice day gives Bruce Cassidy & Bruins a chance to retool slumping power play

In an NHL season where just about every schedule, routine and conventional way of doing things has been thrown out the door due to health and safety protocols — no off days has become the norm.

And no, this isn't a cliched Bill Belichick mantra.

Seriously — the "off days" of old, in which players can decompress, stay away from the rink and hang out with friends, family and teammates aren't feasible, with players required to report for COVID testing day in and day out.

But in the midst of a breakneck schedule in which the Bruins are sprinting to the finish line of the 2021 regular season, there are times when Bruce Cassidy and his staff likely wishes there were more time diverted to on-ice work.

Because, truth be told, even if "off days" really aren't always as they seem in 2021, the amount of practice time available to clubs this time of the year is also limited. With the Bruins closing out the regular season on a draining stretch that features 28 games in 48 days, most days in between contests have Boston routinely opting for these off-ice days or optional skates — rather than drain an already taxed roster with full-practice reps.

Of course, managing the workload of this B's roster is crucial, especially ahead of the postseason. But with three regulars added to the lineup this month in Taylor Hall, Mike Reilly and Curtis Lazar — coupled with some slippage in the finer details of their game — Cassidy has looked forward to the next break in the schedule that could open the door for a full-team practice.

Such an opportunity presented itself Monday in Pittsburgh following Boston's impotent showing against the Penguins the previous afternoon. First on the docket for Cassidy and Co.? Getting a slumping power play back up to speed.



The Bruins might rank 12th overall in the NHL in power play success rate (20.9%), but most of those numbers were buoyed by a strong start in which opponents seemingly didn't have an answer for Nick Ritchie at the netfront.

But over the last month, the B's man advantage has been stuck in a sordid state — cashing in on just three of its last 31 bids on power play. While absences of playmaking options up high such as Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk have hampered some of the puck movement on that top unit, it's not as though Boston's usual suspects down low have also been out of commission. But whether it be PK units pressuring puck carriers up high or making a concerted effort to cheat and seal off David Pastrnak, the results are certainly favoring the opposition, with Pastrnak's last power-play tally coming all the way back on March 18 — 19 games ago.

While it seems for now that Cassidy is keeping that top power-play unit intact (Grzelcyk / Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak / Ritchie), the addition of Hall does give Boston another weapon that they have yet to properly utilize on the man advantage.

Monday's practice likely addressed some of the most pressing flaws found on the man advantage (poor entries and a startling lack of shot volume), but Cassidy also stressed that the importance of getting Hall settled into that second power-play unit — a group that has largely out-performed PP1 over the past month, considering that Craig Smith has scored Boston's last three power-play goals.



(With Craig Smith at the bumper, Boston's second power-play unit has found some success as of late. Getting Taylor Hall added to the mix could make that grouping even more effective — although he could perhaps be better served on the PP1 unit).

"That'll be certainly one of the highest priorities," Cassidy said of working on the power play during Monday's practice. "The problem when you don't practice — so obviously Taylor Hall is a good power-play guy. So where does he best fit? Without any practice, there's some difficulty there. So we've kind of tried to stay true to that number one unit. We put Taylor on it one of the games just for a different look. But until he practices, even with Krech's group, in either elbow .... He has some one timers with Charlie up top, Smitty and Krech through the seam. A lot of his good power-play work was done on his strong side elbow, kind of coming downhill like Matthews does in Toronto on his strong side with that wrister, so we first started him there. Krech had been on the other side. So it was easiest sort of placement, but we really haven't had a lot of opportunity to get him reps and then the other group — sort of revisit some of the issues they've had and just get back to basics.

Indeed, Hall spent most of Monday's practice on his strong side — opening the door for the winger to start generating more looks on net with a clean shots — or opening the door for more seam passes to players like Smith in the bumper. At this point, just getting pucks on net might be the easiest way for Boston to break out of its scoring funk. Despite ranking 12th in the NHL in power-play percentage, the Bruins are actually 27th in the league in shots per 60 minutes on the power play.



(Sticking Hall at his usual preferred spot on the half wall should open the door for either cleaner shots for the winger or open up seam passes to other forwards like Smith and Krejci.)

"I was on the half wall on my strong side and I think it was good," Hall said of his spot during Monday's practice. "When you run into a bit of a wall on the power play, it's important to get different looks to simplify things a bit. I think when Krech and I are on our one-timer sides, I think it just really makes it easier to shoot and create chances from the middle of the ice. On the other side, you have a tendency to overpass and really stay on the outside and you have zone time, but maybe not the chances that you want — the high-danger chances. So yeah, it was good today. I mean, it's hard. This year has been so weird, not having practice time, not having even really proper days off or anything like that. So to get a practice in today is huge and hopefully that benefits us."

Of course, just moving pieces around on those two power-play units and sorting through the X's and O's can help quite a bit when it comes to getting a man advantage back on track. But for as advantageous as more practice reps can be, Cassidy stressed that ultimately, it's going to have to come down to execution in a game setting — something that Boston has labored with for weeks now. The pieces are certainly in place for a regression to the mean given how many top-flight performers are sprinkled on Boston's power play. But now the onus is on those players to let pucks fly — and starting cashing in on these bids.

"I think practice is an issue for us. We could sure use it. But I also think we haven't executed to the level that's necessary to make plays and score," Cassidy said. "So that has to start first — you have to outwork, five guys have to outwork four. You have to execute well and then obviously getting your reps in practices is the third thing to me and we should get some of those tomorrow."