Why's the power play so much worse on the road? taken in Detroit (Penguins)

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The Penguins' power play Saturday in Detroit

DETROIT -- If there's one thing that can be said about this Penguins team, it's that they're consistently inconsistent.

It's often inexplicable.

One of those areas has been the power play. It's had its positive streaks, and yet different players, different units have gone cold for stretches at a time. And the most absurd thing within that has been the split between home and road. It's drastic, there's no good explanation for it, and it's got to be figured out if the team's going to sneak into a Stanley Cup playoff spot and maybe make a run.

And after the Penguins' 5-1 win over the Red Wings here at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday afternoon, those playoff hopes are still very much alive.

The power play is operating at a 21.2% success rate this season, good enough for 17th in the NHL -- as average as average gets. It's when you break those numbers down into the team's performance at home and away games separately where things get befuddling. At home, the success rate is 26%, seventh-best, and on the road it's 16.1%, 29th-best.

When you break the numbers down into rates of things like shot attempts, shots on goal, and goals, the results remain incredibly stark in their differences. These figures are all presented as rates per 60 minutes of power play time.

SHOT ATTEMPTS FOR

Home: 110.09 (9th)
Away: 98.49 (22nd)

SHOTS ON GOAL FOR

Home: 61.28 (8th)
Away: 50.95 (26th)

GOALS FOR

Home: 10.3 (5th)
Away: 5.78 (28th)

If we were talking about five-on-five play, then there would be a good possibility that line-matching was a real factor, because the home team would be able to send their players out second and be in control of the matchups. But we're talking about special teams here, where teams are generally dealing with set units. The top unit plays most of the man advantage, then the second unit comes out in the last 45 seconds or so. That doesn't change based on where the game is being played.

The only other factor that could possibly by in play here is when it comes to faceoffs, but that's so minor that there's no way that's the reason. The visiting center has to put his stick down first for a faceoff only when the faceoff is in the neutral zone -- that puts the visiting team at a disadvantage, since they would have to establish position first. But again, that's only in the neutral zone. Anywhere else on the ice, the defending team puts his stick down first.

It's definitely not the home crowd, either. PPG Paints Arena isn't exactly known for being a raucous atmosphere, and the Penguins fans on the road in some cities are often just as rowdy -- if not more.

To be clear -- this isn't an entirely new problem. Last season, the power play finished with a 20.2% success rate, ranking 19th overall. At home, the power play ranked 13th at 23.3%. On the road, it was 24th at 16.5%. This season, the difference has just been much more drastic.

I asked Mike Sullivan Saturday in Detroit if there's any reason for the dropoff on the road.

"I wish I had the answer for you, because we might be able to solve it," Sullivan told me. "But it is something that we've discussed, for sure. Sometimes just heightening the awareness provides an extra level of incentive and motivation. I don't have a valid answer for you. It's not like draw up two different game plans, one for the home and one for the road. We have a group that we're trying to set them up for success regardless of where the rink is. That's the discussion that we have. We're certainly aware of it, we've made our players aware of it. Hopefully we can solve it here moving forward."

The Penguins managed to "solve" the issue and beat the odds to go 1-for-4 on the man advantage in Saturday's win, with Sidney Crosby's top-shelf snipe keeping the power play afloat on the road:

Players can't identify a good reason for the dropoff, either.

"I'm not sure," Jason Zucker told me with a shrug. "Our power-play unit is pretty solid year after year, those guys have been together for a really long time. They know each other really well. I don't have an answer for you on that one."

They don't have the answers. I definitely don't have the answers. If the Penguins are going to keep playing past the coming week, somebody better find some soon.

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