Behind The Net
Modifying the Kill
By Bob Grove

Through the opening three weeks of the season, the Penguins' power play was still searching for a way to make an impact that would match its high-end talent. Pittsburgh's largely unheralded penalty-killers, on the other hand, had their fingerprints all over the team's impressive start.

Thanks to a flurry of undisciplined penalties out of the gate, the Penguins had been short-handed more times than every other team save the New York Rangers at that point, but their answer to the problem was killing 84.4 percent of their penalties - ranking them eighth in the league. The stellar play of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury was a big help in that start, but there were other contributing factors: the shot blocking of Jay McKee (he led the NHL with 32 blocks after nine games); the use of Matt Cooke in a more prominent role (he led all Penguins' forwards in short-handed ice time); and, says Cooke, the unpredictability of coach Dan Bylsma's approach.

"We've been doing a great job, and I think the biggest thing is we don't do it the same against every team," says Cooke, whose penalty-killing time had more than doubled from last season while being paired with Jordan Staal. "We adjust and change our entire PK system depending on how a team runs their power play. I think most teams kill the same way, regardless, so a power play would adjust to that penalty kill.

"Well, it's tough to adjust to us, because we could change in the middle of a game, let alone between games, and I think that's the strength of Dan coming in and implementing systems. If you're going to be out there, you have to know what you're doing. That's been the strength of the group that's killing penalties, and it's also the strength of the coaching group."

Had Bylsma based his penalty-killing philosophy on the majority of his NHL experience in that role, the Penguins might today be a more reactive team that simply pays a price to kill penalties. But Bylsma was paying attention when, as a member of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, coach Mike Babcock showed him a different way.

"At the end of my penalty killing career, (he) introduced a more aggressive penalty kill that was probably against my strength as a shot blocker and a more passive penalty kill guy - kind of let them shoot it and I'll block it," he remembers. "The style was an aggressive style, dictate where the play is made from, pushing into certain areas of the ice.

"I have a ton of respect for, and you need, shot blockers, but I think you can be aggressive where you push them to make a play, guide them to certain areas, and when you do that, you have a much better chance of breaking up plays and being more aggressive on those loose pucks. That's what we do now. So I have a little bit of both in my experience as a player, and I think a lot of what I do now is taking from (Babcock)."

The beauty of that lesson, of course, is that Bylsma's systems played an important role in helping the Penguins beat Babcock and Detroit in the Cup Finals last spring; outside of their Game 5 meltdown, the Penguins killed 13 of 14 penalties against the Wings in the other six games.

And it serves to point out once again that the best coaches adapt what they've learned in the past to the challenges at hand.