PHILADELPHIA -- In football, it would be like assigning a linebacker to chip the opponent's tight end at the line of scrimmage, then having someone else right behind that linebacker to handle the actual pass coverage.
In basketball, it would be like assigning a forward to defend a guard outside the arc, then having someone else right behind that forward should the opponent still penetrate the paint.
It's a second wave of defense, basically.
If one were tempted to find a baseball parallel, it'd probably be a shortstop shading way over behind the third baseman.
In hockey ... well, I honestly wouldn't have been able to come up with a parallel of any kind until the Penguins, in particular Mike Sullivan and Jacques Martin, concocted a penalty-killing scheme unlike any I'd seen for their 5-1 victory over the Flyers in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup playoffs Sunday at Wells Fargo Center.
The punchline: The PK went 6 for 6 after struggling hugely for, what, two months now?
The explanation: See above, then paint any of those pictures onto a sheet of ice.
To a man, all the way up to the head coach, the Penguins insisted they'd installed nothing dramatically new, acknowledging only a tweak of assignments rather than structure. Which was a little strange, given how obvious the change was, but hey, it's that time of year.
“I don’t think it was a whole lot different," Sullivan would say without elaboration.
"I wouldn't say we really changed too much," Riley Sheahan, the most killer of killers on this day, would tell me. "At least not philosophically."
Have it your way, guys. But as they say in football, it's already been put on tape, so it's not like the Flyers don't know what hit them. The Penguins' penalty-killing isn't a diamond formation, and it's definitely not a box, so let's just call it a blob. Atop the blob is Bryan Rust, pretty much right in the face of Shayne Gostisbehere at center point. And right behind Rust -- just slightly out of line with Gostisbehere's shooting lane -- is Sheahan.
That's one example from a Philadelphia power play late in the first period, but there were several nearly identical sequences in which Sheahan and Rust would reverse roles. At times, they were even closer together, almost awkwardly so, like a horse and rider.
The reasons, as I'd cull from scanning the room, were as follows:
• Gostisbehere's dynamite. He can whip effortless wristers through traffic and create not just goals but convenient rebounds. He also can dance on his skates laterally, which means he can change his own shooting angle with a simple half-step.
This alignment cuts off his shooting angle by putting in place a second obstacle and, as seen above, he's discouraged from even trying.
• Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek are Gostisbehere's two outlet options in the Flyers' umbrella power play, as that formation's always been known. It usually goes to Giroux, but Voracek's almost as dangerous. Both can dish. Both can shoot. The Penguins' studies indicate a leaning toward Giroux, so that's their preference to cut off, but it's not a hard preference. The priority, above all, is to cut off the lane between Gostisbehere and the net. All else is gravy.
Look again at the play above. Gostisbehere clearly wants to go to Giroux but can't, then hesitates after looking at Voracek.
• The forward behind the other forward, in the above case Sheahan behind Rust, is free to peel off to one side or the other depending which way Gostisbehere distributes. That forward will be a little late since the puck moves faster, but my next bullet will venture a guess as to why that's not all that important.
• Go back up to the image and look down low. That's the PK defense pairing of Chad Ruhwedel and Olli Maatta. They're the ones Sullivan had most wanted to see sharpen up because he'd been plenty put off by the Flyers' tic-tac-toe power-play goal in Game 2, in which Nolan Patrick alley-ooped a feed through the box after being left completely unchecked:
As I wrote after that game, the Penguins' PK strayed all over creation. Maatta strayed worse than anyone. And look at the separation between the two forwards, Tom Kuhnhackl and Zach Aston-Reese. Neither really has any purpose.
This time, Sullivan and Martin kept Maatta and Ruhwedel anchored near the crease. Seriously, if you look back up at the original image, they're like bookends, barely budging.
That's partly because Patrick and Sean Couturier, Philadelphia's other forward in that area, are doing nothing to help. When Wayne Simmonds was part of the top power-play unit, with his big frame and willingness to bang in the crease, the Flyers were much harder to defend, at least from this perspective. I've heard Simmonds is playing with a significant injury, so that might justify Dave Hakstol's decision to bury him on the second unit, but it's been that way for a couple months now.
Whatever the case, that both limits the Flyers and benefits the Penguins.
"We know they like to shoot from up there and, when they don't, they steer it to the sides," Sheahan told me. "Gostisbehere can do a lot up there, but they also do a good job when they work through Giroux or Voracek. We basically wanted to stay in shooting lanes, make sure we didn't get sucked out but also try to take those passes away."
"We wanted to make sure their most dangerous guys couldn't get the puck through," Carl Hagelin told me without naming Gostisbehere.
Sullivan, predictably, emphasized the work down low.
"We didn’t give up the grade-A, high-quality, tap-in goal like the one in Game 2. What we did well tonight was that we didn’t give them that freebie, that backdoor, tap-in goal that’s really indefensible from a goaltender standpoint."
Sheahan, Rust, Hagelin and Kuhnhackl handled the load up front, as usual. Ruhwedel, Maatta, Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin and Jamie Oleksiak were down low. All did well in all facets, from pressure up ice to crowding the blue line to clearing 200 feet.
"I thought our best penalty-killer was Matt Murray," Sullivan said. "But I think when you look at a penalty-kill unit that has success, it’s usually the goaltender is their best killer.”
No question. Murray was 11 for 11 on power-play shots.
But he passed the credit outward:
Don't underestimate the value of this development, even if just for this series. The Penguins' power play went 3 for 7 after not producing much in the first two games, but that was as predictable as a 'Crosby sucks!' chant in this building in warmups.
As Schultz put it ...
Indeed, no big deal. On the other hand, this penalty-killing adjustment should -- that's should -- prompt a counter-adjustment from Dave Hakstol, the Flyers' coach. But none came in the second or third periods of this game, so that remains to be seen.
All Hakstol would say of his power play was that he liked what he saw in the first. Which was when the above scene was taking place, so I can't imagine what he liked.
"Early on, I thought we were on and had good looks," Hakstol said. "We didn't get a goal when we really needed one, but I thought the sharpness and crispness was there."
How much do sharpness and crispness mean, though, when the main piece has been isolated and defeated?
Either Hakstol wasn't letting on that he'd been checkmated or he wasn't yet aware.
