Derek Lalonde moved star sniper Alex DeBrincat off the flank on the power play, opening up a whole host of effective options for both of his units. Here's how that works and why it matters.

The Detroit Red Wings moved top line winger Alex DeBrincat down to the second power play unit this week, but not in the role one would expect.

A player with a reputation as a shooter, DeBrincat normally patrols the left flank when he is on the power play. Now, Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde has cast DeBrincat as the bumper, controlling the middle of the ice on the 1-3-1 structure that Detroit uses. Outside of the occasional shift or game, however, DeBrincat hasn't played the bumper routinely since his first year with the OHL’s Erie Otters — when he played with Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome, among other NHLers. But while the position isn’t completely foreign to DeBrincat, it’s still a major shift.

“It's a little different,” DeBrincat told The Hockey News after Thursday's morning skate. “I think it takes a little bit of time to get used to, but it's not a big deal. I think a lot of different guys can play a lot of different positions, so wherever they need me, I'll play and try to do my best at it.”

Why did Lalonde do this? It’s easiest to see this as a demotion for DeBrincat. After all, a shooter of his caliber belongs on the flank, where he can get shots off easily. That’s where he scored one of his two goals in Thursday’s home opener, the other of which was a near identical one-timer at even strength.

Such a simplistic perspective ignores the way that Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde values his bumper position. At a presentation at TCS Live in July 2023, Lalonde included bumper support as one of the four priorities that he and assistant coaches Alex Tanguay and Jay Varady identified. 

An effective bumper serves as support to extend a penalty kill, supporting a pressured puck carrier and maintaining possession, as well as providing another scoring threat. Whereas the point player might be seen as the last line to keep a power play in the zone, it’s just as much a responsibility of the bumper to anticipate where he needs to support. 

It’s under this philosophy that evolving the shot-first DeBrincat into a playmaking role is novel. And looking at how it all played out in Thursday's 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins — when the power play was one of the few bright spots — the effects are noticeable.

Reshuffles Net Early Returns

DeBrincat’s move to the second unit isn’t so much a demotion as it is a simple recast, the result of trying out a few different looks for a power play unit that started slow in the preseason. Of course the Red Wings want DeBrincat to utilize his shot as an individual, but the threat of his shot is also a way to open up other players. Thus comes his move inward.

So far, the returns are largely positive. It’s from the bumper position that DeBrincat assisted on the only goal he didn’t score Thursday night, faking a one-timer while allowing Moritz Seider to connect a catch-and-shoot with the left-handed Vladimir Tarasenko on the left side. The reality of facing DeBrincat from the middle and Tarasenko from the left side forced Pittsburgh goaltender Joel Blomqvist to play the shot honestly.

What about the rest of the power play units? Moving DeBrincat to the second unit was as much about prioritizing puck retrievals for the first unit as it was related to the usage of DeBrincat’s own abilities. In the preseason, the Red Wings’ unit did a decent enough job at creating initial chances, but what happened next killed their momentum. Opponents easily outmuscled the Red Wings for loose pucks and rebounds — the kind of chaos plays that break PK structure and make a goal all the more likely. 

Power plays aren’t so much about getting off one really good shot as they are taking advantage of overwhelming pressure, but that pressure can only build if a team can win back the puck. Wall play and retrievals are imperative to sustaining useful pressure.

To emphasize these areas, Lalonde made a few of adjustments, not just for DeBrincat. Lucas Raymond moved from the net front to the left flank, replacing DeBrincat and giving Detroit better odds to win the puck back on retrievals turned wall battles. Meanwhile J.T. Compher took that first unit net front position, offering a heavier presence compared to the 5-foot-7, 180-pound DeBrincat. His size and skill set allows him to slip behind the net to corral rebounds, but also to withstand a collapsing penalty kill structure when the puck is out in front. Both can also provide pressure on the goaltender, swarming the net for loose pucks when the opponent is vulnerable.

These lineup changes worked exceedingly well against Pittsburgh, even if they didn’t lead to a payoff for the top unit. The quintuplet created ample opportunities from a variety of characters. If it hadn’t been for a missed shot or two and a couple surprising larcenies from Blomqvist, this unit would have been commended for its result. But where Detroit values its process, there were a lot of repeatable elements in these shifts.

Assessing the power play after the game, Lalonde said, “It's tough to fault the power play. The first power play was excellent. And when you get a power play, despite not scoring, but you get zone time and those type of looks, it gives you momentum.” The unit wound up going 1-for-5, scoring the lone goal on a 5-on-3 advantage, though Lalonde considered Vladimir Tarasenko’s second period, 4-2 goal to be the result of a long power play setup that saw him score just as the penalized Penguin exited the box. “Now, could we have used one in the first period?” Lalonde continued. “I think the game looks completely different if we're up 2-0 in the first but again, power play, there were some positives that basically got us two goals.”

With a night to reflect, Lalonde remained bullish Friday afternoon: “I think we had five chances, four grade-As alone on that. And again, a lot of times if you don't score on it but it's sharp, it's momentum. You can feel the momentum, and it helped continue to build our momentum in the first.”

Lalonde’s praise of the first power play unit does ring true. The best outing was by far Detroit’s first power play of the night, starting 8:24 into the first period. What stood out about this power play wasn’t so much the high danger shots that the Red Wings generated, but rather the process of how they got them. They pressured, they fought for rebounds and they created momentum through these traits. It was everything Lalonde could have hoped for from his initial changes.

While these principles existed on the top unit, the second unit featured many of the same traits, with a heavy Tarasenko presence on the left flank to not only shoot but to win puck battles, and with Michael Rasmussen at the net front. All the while, DeBrincat still offers his shooting threat from the bumper while also tapping into his playmaking side. He knows what teams will do when he shows the shot, and so he can use that to manipulate them as a means to help his teammates score — something harder to do from the flank. The effects of DeBrincat's shot threat can be viewed below on Tarasenko’s goal, as described before.

If the cat is out of the bag on DeBrincat's shot, then the one teammates nickname The Cat just has to reach deeper into his own. Putting DeBrincat at the bumper also affords him more opportunities to score by raising the number of times he touches the puck. And by spreading out the eggs in his power play basket, DeBrincat’s combination of playmaking and shooting from the bumper position prevents the team in front of him from settling in. DeBrincat’s shot surprises no one, but he still has to find a way to use it. Sometimes, that use is as a veiled threat as it was Thursday night.

Less Pressure, More Results

There is also a way to see this move taking some the pressure off of DeBrincat, whose frequent dry spells last season saw him go from a projected 40-goal scorer at the start of the season to clocking well under 30 by its end. Detroit doesn't want to judge DeBrincat's good or bad nights based on goals because it values process over production. The how over the what.

“When talking with Alex, we set simpler goals,” Lalonde said Wednesday. “We'd like to get maybe two to three shots off a game within the scoring area — make that a goal. I never had a concern with Alex, and I talked about this a lot, in that through those cold spells of finishing, if you will, he was still getting looks. I would have been more concerned when he wasn't getting looks. And sometimes that shooting percentage is high, sometimes low, but even on those dry spells, he's getting looks.”

By moving him inside, Lalonde puts DeBrincat in a position where his success and failure aren’t judged by goal totals. He can influence play in multiple different ways. So, instead of running through the figurative wall of his slumps, he can just contribute in other areas. The best way to break through a slump is to not think you are in a slump.

Meanwhile, DeBrincat's ample experience as a shooter gives him lots of know-how of what works to feed an open shooter. He can reverse engineer his experience with the flank to provide better chances for his teammates.

“Sometimes those guys, they have an uncanny ability to find holes and to corral rebounds,” Lalonde said. “So it's just a look. He's a valuable player (as) a shooter. It's probably not his skill set to have a power play run through him, so sometimes in the flank, you battle that balance.”

To Lalonde, moving DeBrincat around is also a reflection of the build of Detroit’s power play. For the former Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning power plays that revolutionized the 1-3-1 setup that almost every team uses today, they had the luxury of having the exact players they needed for all five roles with exactly the right blend of handedness. Detroit doesn’t have that luxury, and it doffed a few effective power play options in Robby Fabbri and Daniel Sprong during the offseason. Lalonde feels he can keep the power play effective through through experimentation.

“(We) still have valuable players, so I think you gotta be a little creative,” Lalonde said Friday. “So I think you're going to see our power play a little bit fluid.”

Again, Detroit values process, but it also has to put players in the best positions to execute that process. Whether it’s moving DeBrincat down to play an unnatural bumper position or blending in some larger bodies in Compher and Rasmussen, Lalonde is finding a way to maximize his team’s power play. 

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