Which players on a hockey team are the most likely to score a goal: the forwards or the defencemen?
This isn’t a trick question and it has an obvious answer: forwards are more likely to score than defenceman. For a forward, scoring goals is part of the job description, while a defenceman’s primary responsibility is generally to prevent them.
At 5-on-5, the general formation we see on the ice is three forwards and two defencemen. This has remained unchanged for decades, though we’re seeing the emergence of puck-rushing defencemen that play almost a rover-like role of late. Guys like Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns are challenging the three forward/two defencemen formation with the way they join the attack.
For years on the power play, we saw the same formation: three forwards, two defenceman. Over the past decade, however, we’ve seen more and more teams move to a four-forward setup, with just one defenceman back at the point. There is a lot of data that supports this move: four-forward formations both take more shots and have a higher shooting percentage on the power play.
It makes intuitive sense: forwards are generally a team’s best offensive players. Instead of limiting yourself to putting three of your best offensive players on the ice with the man advantage, why not add another one?
Last season, teams used four forwards on the power play nearly 60% of the time. That’s a significant increase from even five years ago, when teams used four forwards under 40% of the time.
That’s how the Canucks started the 2017-18 season, with two units that used four forwards and one defenceman. The top unit had the Sedins with Thomas Vanek, Sam Gagner, and Alex Edler. The second unit was Loui Eriksson, Alexander Burmistrov, Bo Horvat, Sven Baertschi, and Ben Hutton.
Over the last few games, however, the Canucks have switched to three forwards and two defencemen on one of their power play units. While the Sedins still have just one defenceman on their unit — Michael Del Zotto in place of Edler — the Horvat unit now has two defencemen: Ben Hutton and Derrick Pouliot.
The Canucks power play has struggled all season, but finally broke through against the Washington Capitals, going 3-for-6, and it was the Horvat unit that scored all three goals. On each goal, they had two defencemen on the ice.
It’s incredibly risky to draw conclusions based on just one game, and going 3-for-6 against the Capitals’ fairly woeful penalty kill does not suggest the Canucks’ power play is fixed, but there are some other positive signs that suggest using two defencemen on the Horvat unit makes sense.
The best power play in the league belongs to the Dallas Stars. They are converting on a whopping 32.4% of their power plays. They get to that percentage by taking a massive number of shot attempts (corsi), averaging 139.42 shot attempts per hour while on the power play, which leads the league by a wide margin. They also lead the league in unblocked shot attempts per hour (fenwick), shots on goal per hour, and goals per hour on the power play.
The Canucks are nowhere near those numbers. They average 91.45 corsi per hour on the power play, 22nd in the NHL. They’re dead last in fenwick and 18th in shots on goal. Unsurprisingly, with those numbers, they’re 18th in the NHL in goals per hour on the power play.
Here’s the thing: with both Pouliot and Hutton on the ice, those numbers are massively better.
When Pouliot and Hutton are together on the power play, the Canucks average 132.94 corsi per hour, which is right behind the Stars and ahead of the second place team in power play corsi, the Los Angeles Kings. More of those shot attempts come from the point with two defencemen on the ice, so more of those shots get blocked, but they’re still not far behind the stars in fenwick and nearly dead even in shots on goal per hour.
Essentially, when the Canucks’ power play has both Pouliot and Hutton on the ice, it produces shot attempts, shots on goal, and goals at a rate slightly lower than the best power play in the NHL.
In the game against the Capitals, all three goals were created by point shots, though one was by Brock Boeser instead of one of the two defencemen. Hutton and Pouliot also didn't remain static at the point, frequently rotating and jumping down the boards to open up passing and shooting lanes.
A couple caveats: comparing Pouliot and Hutton’s results with team results is a little bit of apples to oranges. If the Horvat unit continues producing with Pouliot and Hutton at the point, doing a more in-depth analysis that compares them to other top units around the league would be a bit more fair.
It’s also an incredibly small sample size: just over 11 minutes of ice time. A lot of random variance can happen in that small amount of time. Still, it’s enough to stick with this three forward, two defenceman setup for a little while longer.
One of the reasons this makes so much sense for the Canucks is that they lack legitimate star power up front. Brock Boeser seems intent on becoming a star forward, but the Canucks are in more of a scoring-by-committee state right now. What they do have, however, is several defencemen capable of playing on the power play.
Even with Alex Edler and Troy Stecher out of the lineup, the Canucks still have Michael Del Zotto, Derrick Pouliot, and Ben Hutton as legitimate power play options. Sticking with a four-forward formation for each power play unit would leave one of these defencemen on the bench when they are among the Canucks’ best options on the power play.
Tyler Dellow asked San Jose Sharks head coach Pete DeBoer about the four-forward formation on the power play (paywall), as he was one of the early adopters of this setup. He made an interesting point about personnel and how the trend might move the other way in the future:
The reality is, this is my 10th year now, but (from) when I broke into the league, the dynamics of how a team's built have changed. I'll be interested to see where it goes because I think it might change the other way again. When I came in, you were carrying three or four heavy, hard, physical defensemen. You didn't have a lot of skating, puck moving defensemen. A lot of teams had the luxury of one or two.
I think in Florida my first year, we had Jay Bouwmeester, he was probably the guy. I can't remember when I started that but a lot of it was out of necessity of getting the most skilled guys on the ice. A lot of times it was forwards and you didn't have the luxury of that many defensemen.
The way teams are being built now, with more skating, more puck-handling, more rushing defensemen, you might see a trend back the other way but we'll be interested to see.
You can read some of Dellow's specific thoughts on the Canucks' power play (paywall), albeit from prior to the game against the Capitals.
The Canucks are the right team to go back to two defencemen on the power play: they lack top-end skill at forward and have several offensively capable defencemen. With their move away from heavy, physical defencemen, they fit right into what DeBoer was saying about the trend moving the other way.
For now, the Sedin unit continues to use just one defenceman on the point, which will likely continue at least until Stecher and/or Edler return to the lineup. But if the Horvat unit continues to be successful with two defencemen, it will be interesting to see if Newell Brown and Travis Green try moving to two defencemen with the Sedin unit as well.
