Thats all fine but the penalty kill is checking Ovechkin 1 on 1. wherever he goes 1 of those guys follows him. So he wouldnt be standing in the right wing circle all by himself like that. Also, that pk awful. Kuzy takes that cross ice pass thru the box any time its there. Teams dont allow that unless its a mistake.
In the last game Ovechkin and Carlson switched. The guy that takes Carlson away switched and took Ov away and the guy that took Ov away got Carlson. Ive got no problem giving that I try. I am just reminding you that the problem with that is that Ovechkin is getting 1 on 1 coverage and is more often skating out of the play to take the defender with him than getting open like that.
You make it sound like he'll never be open again. What I'm saying is if you put movement into the formation and try things that are unusual, the PK will get confused and not know what to do next. They will default to covering Ovi but then he'd be on his forehand on the RW and he can find someone backdoor for a tap in. The weakest part of any diamond formation PK, which is the main formation used against our PP, is low to high passes. That turns the diamond into a square which opens up the cross ice pass lane.
You just gotta have a guy who can shoot right off of these passes coming down the strong side with speed.
Here's another example.
- Marner actually goes low to high by himself, which brings Pietrangelo with him all the way to the point. Notice how Matthews is following the play.
- Pietrangelo tries to recover by following Nylander down the RW, and the diamond PK becomes a square. That opens up the passing lane.
- The cross ice pass comes, and Pietrangelo is stuck in the middle not covering anybody. Tavares sets the screen, Lehner needs to push hard across but Matthews snipes him.