Victories and success with the man advantage go hand-in-hand in the postseason.
By FRANK PASTOR
Published May 21, 2004
PHILADELPHIA - With goalies playing well, teams blocking shots and space limited, a team can spend as much as five minutes in an opponent's zone and come away with nothing more than a shot during five-on-five situations.
Which is why, more often than not, games are decided when teams are up or down a man.
"If someone says, "You get three power plays this game before the game,' that's something you say, "Well that's going to win us or lose us the game,' " Lightning center Brad Richards said. "And that's what it does. It's that important."
Richards would know. He scored two of the Lightning's three power-play goals in a 4-2 victory on Thursday. Philadelphia failed to convert on its three chances.
It was no coincidence the win moved Tampa Bay within one game of the Stanley Cup final.
Entering Game 6 Thursday at the Wachovia Center, the Lightning had scored on seven of 23 chances with the man advantage while limiting a Flyers power-play unit that ranked among the best in the league during the regular season to one goal on 23.
"Power plays are a funny thing. They get streaky," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "There's no particular thing that we are doing. It's just, we know during the regular season and into the playoffs they have some quality people and it's a very good power play. We've been fortunate to get some things done."
Special-teams success is the result of effort and execution, players say. To Lightning defenseman Dan Boyle, that means making the most of the manpower advantage.
"You're outmanning the other team, so you definitely have to outnumber those guys," Boyle said. "If that puck's in the corner, if there are three guys in there, you've got to be four. You never want to give them the upper hand, and that's probably the big key as far as we're concerned."
Setting up scoring opportunities requires the right mind-set, Richards said. Rather than waiting for someone to get them the puck or hoping for it, all five players have to decide collectively that they want to make a play.
After that, it's a matter of making correct decisions with the puck.
"It's a funny thing," Richards said. "It can really mess with you once you get in a slump, and once you get hot, it's the best thing ever."
Though defensemen are responsible for clogging the center of the ice and blocking passes and shots from the point, a team's ability to kill a penalty often comes down to goaltending. And no goalie is playing better than the Lightning's Nikolai Khabibulin, who has four shutouts.
"The key to the penalty kill is goaltending, and Habby's been awesome at that," Lightning center Tim Taylor said. "He's kept the puck away. Our defensemen are very good at denying them the pass to the net and making sure we take away their shots and then keeping it outside."
Philadelphia coach Ken Hitchcock said the 1-for-36 slump (dating to the Toronto series) would not be an issue had the Flyers done a better job of keeping the puck out of their net.
"The power play becomes a focal point usually when the penalty killing isn't doing the job," Hitchcock said. "That's kind of where we're at right now. I think we have not done a good enough job killing penalties, so it's put pressure in other areas to score goals."
