The Nashville Predators worked on the power play today, head coach Andrew Brunette shared who's in charge of the man advantage, and one teammate talks about what is most impressive about Ryan O'Reilly.
The Nashville Predators worked on the power play today, head coach Andrew Brunette shared who's in charge of the man advantage, and one teammate talks about what is most impressive about Ryan O'Reilly.
The Nashville Predators hit the ice this morning at Centennial Sportsplex for another day of practice before tomorrow night's final home preseason game at Bridgestone Arena. Andrew Brunette and the team focused quite of bit of practice on the power play today.
Power Play
With the departure of Dan Lambert and the hiring of Andrew Brunette, there was some question about who would oversee the power play this season. After practice Andrew Brunette answered that question, but not without a caveat.
Brunette shared a bit of his power play philosophy after practice saying he likes to give the players on the ice options and then give them a little room to be creative.
Andrew Brunette on the Power Play:
"I think no matter how good of a coach you are, you kind of give some options and at the end of the day, they make the decisions. You have to trust they'll make the decisions, you have to have the right players to make the decisions. As a coaching staff, we can just prepare them and give them options and let them make the decisions."
Brunette spent a significant amount of time working on entering the zone on the power play this morning as well.
The importance of zone entries on the power play:
"When you go up and down the ice two or three times, it's frustrating. When frustration leaks into the power play, then it's gonna have trouble scoring because you're so frustrated. So it's crucial that we be good at that."
If today's practice is any indication, the top power play unit could be Roman Josi, Filip Forsberg, Ryan O'Reilly, Cody Glass, and Tommy Novak. The second unit for a majority of the power play work was Juuso Pärssinen, Luke Evangelista, Tyson Barrie, Denis Gurianov, and new-to-camp Samuel Fagemo.
The Predators picked up Fagemo off waivers on Sunday and are working to learn more about the 23-year-old winger's game as training camp starts to wind down. Fagemo was a standout on the power play for the Ontario Reign last season where 13 of his 23 goals came on the man advantage.
Ryan O'Reilly
A new addition to the power play for Nashville is O'Reilly. Although O'Reilly saw less time on the power play last season between St. Louis and Toronto, he figures to be in important piece for the Predators on the man advantage.
Brunette on what O'Reilly brings to the power play:
"He brings everything everywhere. He's an extremely intelligent player, very cerebral, one of the smartest players in the league on both sides of the puck. His timing is impeccable. He's always available. Arguably the best stick in the league. So he brings a lot of different things. He's really good on faceoffs, and he's been doing it for a long time."
Part of why general manager Barry Trotz wanted to being O'Reilly to Nashville was to be another veteran presence on a team that is focused on developing young players. I asked Luke Evangelista what he has seen from O'Reilly in training camp so far.
"Honestly watching him, I can't believe how good his stick work is defensively and stuff like that. Stripping guys, knocking pucks out of the air, that sort of thing. He can play in every situation. He's really effective on the PK and obviously five on five and power play, too."
"That's the biggest thing that stuck out for me is his ability to end plays and create offense for himself and puck possession for himself just from having a good defensive stick."
Roster Update
Mark Jankowski was placed on waivers today by the Predators. Jankowski played 50 games for Nashville last season and scored seven goals and 12 points. The 29-year-old averaged 12:26 time on ice last season, played an important role on the penalty kill, and led the team in shorthanded goals with three.