A week and a half later, Sam Bennett let us in on the joke.
Talking after practice on Tuesday, the Flames forward decided to let us in on the reason for the wide smiles, the chuckles, the giddiness.
To set the scene, it was two Saturdays ago. Calgary had entered the night having lost three of four and a raucous sellout crowd at the Scotiabank Saddledome was growing increasingly nervous by the minute. In the season’s first Battle of Alberta, Edmonton led 2-0 late in the second period.
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But with Oilers defenceman Adam Larsson in the penalty box, the home side scored one of its biggest goals of the season.
The sequence begins with a Mikael Backlund dump-in, which leads to James Neal beating Darnell Nurse to the puck for possession. Neal then uses his 6-foot-3 frame to box out the Oilers defenceman and chip the puck around the boards to Derek Ryan in the near corner.
With a nice move, Ryan shakes Ryan Nugent-Hopkins briefly, buying him space to thread a pass back to Noah Hanifin, who is busting in from the blueline. Hanifin immediately sends a touch pass to Bennett on the other side, whose quick shot is stopped, but the rebound squirts out the other side where Ryan backhands it into the open net.
The immediate smile from Ryan, as the five Flames skaters came together in the corner, spoke volumes about the goals’ significance.
Sure, it was Ryan’s first goal in 14 games.
Sure, it drew the Flames to within a goal at 2-1.
But more importantly than that, and coming in game No. 20, it was the first goal of the season for the second power-play unit.
All five of them were well aware of that, too.
“PP2! PP2! PP2! In the celebration, all the guys were yelling it,” said Bennett on Tuesday, grinning as he recalled the scene. “It was actually pretty funny.”
Calgary went on to score three times in the third period, en route to a win 4-2. That victory was the start of four wins in their last five games, fuelled for the first time by a legitimate 1-2 punch on the power play.
Nobody was happier at seeing that drought snapped than Backlund. While the rest of the personnel on that second unit had seen changes — different players were promoted or demoted and Neal got a brief audition on the first unit — the one constant at that point had been Backlund, who had logged over 35 minutes of power-play ice time without seeing the red lamp light up once.
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“What was it, 19 games without a goal?” asked Backlund on Tuesday, knowing exactly where I was going with my question and getting the number exactly right. “We weren’t good enough and that’s the bottom line.”
Up until that moment, all 12 of Calgary’s power play goals had been authored by the No. 1 unit. To say the second unit wasn’t pulling their weight would be an understatement.
“There was definitely some chirps about how the second power-play unit hadn’t scored in, 16, 18 games, whatever it was,” Bennett said.
But after getting that first one, now the tide has changed.
Dating back to that game against the Oilers, the second power play has produced three goals compared to two for the No. 1 unit.
Or make that the other unit.
“Oh, I’m giving it back to them, for sure,” Backlund said. “I let them know, so I guess we’re the first unit now.”
Backlund bringing the heat shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Asked who the best trash talker was on his unit, Ryan responded without hesitation. “This guy right here,” he said, pointing to the adjacent stall which happens to be Backlund’s. “He’s never shy to speak his opinion or throw a chirp out there.”
Mark Giordano, quarterback of the first unit, could only roll his eyes at the notion of his unit being chirped, given the six-and-a-half weeks of nothing but bagels the other guys had rung up.
“Oh, I think it’s a little bit early for that,” he said with a laugh.
So why the newfound success? Changes to the personnel is probably the top reason.
While the first unit had essentially been the same five guys all season, the second unit has not enjoyed that luxury of stability. Nor had they earned it, either. Change is inevitable when things aren’t working, so Bill Peter kept tinkering with different configurations in order to find a solution.
Finally in late October, nine games into the season and after his club limped home from a 3-2 loss in Montreal, the coach said enough is enough.
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“Some funks are coach-induced. We made a lot of changes in personnel and didn’t stay with it long enough,” admitted Peters on Tuesday, reflecting back. “So we made a decision to pick five guys and go with those five guys. We’ve done that and they’ve done a good job.”
The two notable changes to the second unit were the additions of Bennett up front and the insertion of Hanifin on the blueline. They replaced Austin Czarnik and TJ Brodie respectively. Backlund, Neal and Ryan rounded out the group.
Although Czarnik has spelled Ryan a handful of times since — a swap of right-shot forwards — it’s basically been those same five guys ever since, especially of late.
“We had new coaches, new players here and they tried different combinations,” Backlund said. “But lately we’ve been playing with the same unit and I think that helps, too, to get to work with the same guys, know how they think and how they feel. We were out of sync in the beginning, but now we’re working more as a unit.”
It’s interesting to note that Brodie has played his best hockey in years after being removed from the power play, a unit he has been a fixture on for years.
For some perspective, Brodie saw a combined 8:35 in power-play time in the opening home and home series with the Vancouver Canucks. In the 22 games since, he’s logged just 7:55 on the power play. Going back to game 10 when he was swapped out for Hanifin, he’s seen just 2:55 of time on the man advantage.
“Hanny is a guy who walks the line and makes good decisions with the puck up top,” Peters said. “He has the ability to shoot it. We’d like to see him establish his shot a little bit more to make that unit more dangerous. But we’ve left that group together for a while now and I think it’s paid off.”
Bennett’s 180 degree turnaround from being solely a penalty killer through the first nine games, to only seeing special teams time on the power play since, has also worked out nicely for the 22-year-old, who is playing the best hockey of his career.
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“Benny is a real good net-front presence and he’s relentless there,” Peters said. “He’s fearless at the net. He’ll do a good job screening the goalie and he’s good on retrievals, so when we shoot it, he works hard to get it back.”
Here’s how the power-play units stack up today, with both deploying a 4F/1D set-up:
PP1 – AAV of $25.65 million
- F – Johnny Gaudreau (L), $6.75M
- F – Sean Monahan (L), $6.375M
- F – Elias Lindholm (R), $4.85M
- F – Matthew Tkachuk (L), $925,000
- D – Mark Giordano (L), $6.75M
PP2 – AAV of $21.1 million
- F – Neal (L), $5.75M
- F – Backlund (L), $5.35M
- F – Ryan (R) $3.125M
- F – Bennett (L) $1.95M
- D – Hanifin (L), $4.95M
Another difference is their positioning on the ice, under the instruction of associate coach Geoff Ward, who runs the power play unit.
For example, Ryan is now deployed on the right-side boards, opposed to earlier in the year when he was utilized in a couple of different ways. He was more in the middle of the ice to begin with, before being moved to the boards on the left side.
“For me, being put on the half-wall on the other side, where I am now, is definitely where I’m more comfortable,” Ryan said. “I don’t really prefer to play on that other side. I feel like I can create more and I feel more comfortable on this side, so for myself, individually, that’s been a nice change.”
Video snapshots of the second unit’s set-up once they are in the offensive zone at three points in the season sheds some light on how the configuration changed.
Game 1 at Vancouver:
Game 13 at Buffalo:
Game 21 versus Vegas:
Just like with any puzzle, it’s about finding the best place to fit each piece.
Another contributor to the turnaround has been more practice time.
Regularly of late, including again on Wednesday, the second power play unit will hit the ice 15 minutes prior to the morning skate to get some extra reps in.
“They’ve really worked on it,” Peters said. “We’ve been fortunate in games that we’ve had power plays too. You need some power-play opportunities. It’s great to practice it, but it’s nice to get repetition in game and they’ve been able to do that and they’ve been rewarded for moving the puck well.
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“Breakouts have gotten cleaner and the faceoffs have gotten better. Those two things, for me, have really improved.”
Backlund echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“We’re more direct. If we can’t carry it in, we dump it in and we get after it. We win retrievals, we get more shots to the net and when the plays are there, we make better plays.”
Better and more precise execution has also been integral to the turnaround.
“After our entries, we’re setting up quickly,” Hanifin said. “A lot of times (before), we would get in the zone and we would lose it and they would dump it down and we just kept breaking out and breaking out. Now we’re doing a much better job of getting pucks in, getting on it hard and then just kicking it out and setting it up.”
The unit has adopted the mantra, less is sometimes more.
“We’re just keeping it a little more simple,” Ryan said. “Getting pucks to the net. Shooting more. We want to be more of a shooting power play. There’s a lot of skill on our unit.”
Early on, gaining the zone and getting set up was one of the biggest issues. If you’re getting out there for the final 40-45 seconds of a power play, it only takes one squandered attempt to break into the zone and you’ve pretty much frittered away your opportunity.
“Our zone entries have been a lot better and with that, we’re getting more pucks to the net,” Bennett said. “When you put pucks to the net on the power play, eventually you’re either going to get the puck back or you’re going to get a good bounce. That’s really what’s helped us have so much success lately.”
Sitting in top spot in the Pacific, having two dangerous power-play units instead of one, will only further strengthen Calgary’s position as one of the teams to beat in the division.
It’s clear there’s some healthy, internal competition between the two units, which should help drive both to be better.
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“We want it to be competitive, big time,” Peters said. “We want one unit to push the other and whatever unit is going best, when you can, goes over the boards.”
However, it’s not always as simple as starting with the hottest unit. Deployment depends on the game situation and who starts a power play is typically predetermined by which line is coming off the ice.
For example, if the Monahan line was just out for a long shift, which resulted in drawing a penalty, they’re going to come off for a rest and the No. 2 unit will start.
But power plays to begin a period or after a TV timeout, those are situations where the coach gets to decide and while earlier in the season it would have been a no-brainer as to who goes over the boards first, that’s not the case anymore.
“When it’s competitive, I’ll say to Wardo, who do you want to go with,” Peters said. “When you have a carry-over power play and you start a period with, say, 1:50 left, like we did the other day, now you have an actual decision to make. We want it to be competitive in a positive way.”
Giordano relishes the competition between units, saying it will only help the team.
“It’s good to have that little competition internally. I’ve always liked that. When the two power-play units go at each other a little bit and try to outscore one another. That’s a good thing for the team,” the captain said.
“To be honest, the second unit doesn’t get out there much if we’re scoring. But when we don’t score, it’s really important (for them) to get out there and create and pop a few. They’ve been really good. They’ve been feeling it the last few games.”
The only power play goal in Calgary’s 6-1 win over Arizona on Sunday, came from that second unit.
A breakdown of the power play before and after the game against the Oilers illustrates just how bad it was prior to and how good it’s now going for PP2.
The saving grace in the early going was Calgary was winning games, despite the second power-play unit.
“Definitely the team winning made it easier,” Backlund said. “The first unit playing so well made it a lot easier too. They scored so much we didn’t get out there half the time!”
But that’s changed now and with home games this week against Dallas and Los Angeles, we will see if the trend continues.
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“They were chirping us for a while so now we’re starting to get back at them,” Hanifin said. “It’s fun though. Keeps the mood light.”
If Neal and that second power-play unit can continue to produce, maybe the new chant during their goal celebrations will be “PP1! PP1! PP1!”
Now that would be a chirp.
(Top photo: Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images)