Is This the Year the Wild's Power Play Has A Second Punch?

For the past three years or so, the Minnesota Wild's power play strategy has been relatively straightforward. They have a top unit that includes great scorers like Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy, and Joel Eriksson Ek, and they play as many minutes as humanly possible.

It made a ton of sense. For one, Kaprizov is an elite scorer, and those guys (think the Alex Ovechkins of the world) play a ton of minutes. Sometimes, they never even come off the ice on the power play. That can be a good thing. What wasn't good was the stark drop-off in talent from the first to the second unit.

The 2022-23 season stands out as a glaring example. On the occasions when the top unit would come off the ice, the Wild's second unit included Freddy Gaudreau, Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, and Sam Steel. Those players have their spot... and it's not on a power play. Marco Rossi's arrival has helped alleviate that issue slightly, but it has left the Wild one injury away from having a shallow bench again. And news flash, they were injured a lot.

That left Matt Boldy as one of the most heavily leaned on power-play artists in the NHL. To put that in some perspective, here are the top-10 players in the league, in terms of percentage of their team's total time on the man advantage:

1. Nathan MacKinnon: 79.2%
2. Nikita Kucherov: 78.8%
3. Evan Bouchard: 77.0%
4. Cale Makar: 76.1%
5. William Nylander: 75.7%
6. Alex Ovechkin: 75.6%
7. MATT BOLDY: 74.4%
8. Clayton Keller: 73.2%
9. David Pastrnak: 72.6%
10. Jake Guentzel, 72.0%

And that doesn't even really get at how dire the Wild's power play situation could get. Remember, Kaprizov missed half the season, Eriksson Ek missed nearly half, and Zuccarello missed 13 games, a sizable portion of the year. If we look at those players' percentage of power play minutes in the games that they played, those three players look like this:

Zuccarello: 74.5%
Kaprizov: 72.4%
Eriksson Ek: 68.7%

Playing one player that much, or even two -- like the Colorado Avalanche or Tampa Bay Lightning -- might be the wisest strategy, even when a team has options. Kaprizov and Boldy are probably going to maximize a team's odds of scoring on the man advantage, even if they've been on the ice for 75 seconds. Having so many players carry such a heavy load is simply the output of a lack of depth.

That depth can be useful, just ask the two-time Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers. Their top minute-muncher on the power play was Sam Reinhart, who logged just 66.0% of Florida's power play minutes last year. Players on the second unit, like Sam Bennett (sometimes), Evan Rodrigues, and Mackie Samoskevich, got meaningful minutes and chipped in goals. That depth was how they survived a season where Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk missed significant time.

Meanwhile, the Wild were 20 seconds away from sitting out the playoffs due to injuries, and a big culprit was that their power play lacked a second punch.

So, the question is now: Does that change?

It seems unlikely that Kaprizov and Boldy will have their power-play minutes dialed back. They're just too talented to take off the ice. However, Eriksson Ek plays a significant number of minutes, and while he excels at the net front, he could benefit from a decrease in minutes. Zuccarello just turned 38 earlier this week, and while he's probably going to be a valuable part of the power play, they might not want to overwork him, either.

New blood and depth might finally make a second unit possible in Minnesota. No longer does a healthy Wild team need to ice Marco Rossi and a bunch of checking-line players as their next wave. There is legit talent waiting to take the ice.

Let's start with Zeev Buium. While he'll undoubtedly be part of the top unit, his presence means that quarterbacking the power play won't be the primary responsibility of Brock Faber or Jared Spurgeon. Faber might not be the most natural fit on the power play, but he performed reasonably well in his rookie season. Meanwhile, Spurgeon still has experience, though his most potent weapon on the power play is his shot, not necessarily coordinating an attack.

And to think, it might not even be one of them who quarterbacks the second unit. David Jiříček's got a huge shot and was terrific as a power play guy in the AHL. John Hynes will get to ride the hot hand instead of putting either in that spot if they aren't working.

The forward side of things is where things get tantalizing, though. Vladimir Tarasenko brings experience, and although he's no longer the power play wizard he once was, he still possesses enough skill to play on the second unit. Beyond that, the arrivals of Danila Yurov and Liam Öhgren should also prove to be a boost. Twelve of Öhgren's 39 points (eight goals, four assists) came via the power play in Iowa last season.

Minnesota doesn't just have the luxury of working in players like Yurov and Öhgren into the power play mix, though. They have a borderline obligation, at least from a developmental standpoint.

The last time Minnesota had this robust a crop of prospects entering the league was in the early 2010s, with Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker, Matt Dumba, and Jonas Brodin arriving. Despite the influx of youth, Ryan Suter, Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, and Jason Pominville dominated the power play minutes. It took Granlund until the 2015-16 season to break into the first unit. Zucker didn't make the top unit until 2017-18. Meanwhile, Coyle and especially Niederreiter were left as second thoughts with the man advantage.

The defining characteristic of those players was a lack of elite offense. Perhaps it might have been different if Minnesota had given its young players more important minutes on a quicker timeline. Finding ways to get Kaprizov to work with his newer, younger teammates on the power play could help this group of prospects avoid the same fate. 

That, and help the Wild do Job No. 1: win games. Too many times, we've seen Minnesota have no answers when its power play gets cold. After many years of no depth beyond their top unit, the team might finally have the personnel to go to their bench and depend on them for some big goals.