Despite their overwhelming mediocrity so far this year, the Tampa Bay Lightning are humming along on the power play at a comfortable 30.4% clip so far this season. There was some worry that the loss of Alex Killorn on the first unit might lead to some struggles, but so far Nick Paul has been a more than adequate replacement as he has tallied 4 times early on in the season.
Nikita Kucherov is off to his usual dominating self with 10 points (4 goals, 6 assists) on the power play while Brayden Point has picked up 3 goals after a slow start. One name that is missing among the goal-scoring leaders on special teams is Steven Stamkos. His lone power play tally came on a 5-on-3.
It’s kind of odd that he scored that one on a wrister since the image that forms in most folk’s mind when they see the words “Steven Stamkos power play goal” is the future hall-of-famer winding up and walloping a one-timer from the left circle.
For 16 seasons opposing goaltenders have known where his shot is coming from and for 16 seasons he’s still beat them with an elite shot. Out of his 520 career goals, 196 have come on the power play, and the bulk of those have come on the one-timer.
Overall, Stamkos is off to a good start this season with 15 points in 14 games (he missed two early in the season due to a small injury) with 5 goals and 10 assists. He does have a 6-on-5 goal and the lone 5-on-3 goal. If he finishes at this pace, the 1.1 goals/60 on the power play would not only be the lowest mark of his career, it would be more than half of the lowest number he’s ever posted. So what’s going on with The Captain on the power play?
He’s getting his shots as he’s averaging 23.95 per 60 minutes on the power play, which is second-highest mark of his career. His shots are also getting through at a higher rate than normal as his shot-through percentage (percentage of shot attempts that make it on net) is at 63.6%, the second-highest of his career. According to NST, only three of his shot attempts on the power play have been blocked, and those all came early in the season. Scoring chances, ice time, expected goals are all pretty much among the top marks of his career.
There was a theory earlier in the season that Nikita Kucherov was shooting more and that would lead to fewer attempts for Stamkos, but that’s not the case as Kuch is averaging 14.087 S/60 on the power play which is pretty much in line with what he did last year (14.99). The right-wing was scoring a bit more on his shots, but not really taking a lot more.
The same goes for the rest of Stammer’s linemates with the man-advantage. They’re all relatively close to last year’s numbers. The one outlier is Victor Hedman who averaged 7.3 S/60 on the power play last year, but is at 9.78 this year. If you might recall, however, The Big Swede spent a large portion of the season on the second unit with Mikhail Sergachev taking his spot. Sergy was averaging 9.3 s/60 last year in that quarterback role.
One glaring number that stands out for Stamkos this year is his shooting percentage on the power play. Natural Stat Trick lists it at 4.76% overall, and 0.0% during 5-on-4 opportunities. That’s right, Steven Stamkos has yet to score a 5-on-4 goal 14 games into the season.
As you can imagine, that 4.76% number is by far the lowest of his career (11.11% in 2016-17 is his next lowest number) and is unlikely to continue. Stamkos is a notoriously streaky scorer and all it will take is a couple going in and his numbers will skyrocket. Last season when he scored 14 times on the power play he had several double-digit games streaks without a goal, including a 20-gamer late in the season.
He’s also been chipping in pretty with 7 assists on special teams. The more he sets up other players for goals, the more teams won’t be able to collapse on him and take that one-timer away. It’s a long season and things tend to balance out. As long as he’s generating chances, it’s only a matter of time until he starts putting them in the back of the net.