Kovacevic: All power-play solutions still fall into a straight line

"Hey! Puusty!"

Erik Karlsson barks out to Valtteri Puustinen, booming all through an empty PPG Paints Arena. This was in the midst of multiple power-play drills in the Penguins' practice on this Sunday morning, but hey, it's not as if he'd be interrupting anything important, right?

"Come back to me!"

Karlsson again. He'd gotten the kid's attention even as he was still commanding the puck from the center point and warding off an oncoming penalty-killer. Dude's really, really good.

The kid did, indeed, drift back into the high slot. Facing Karlsson now, he'd take a pass, blade-to-blade and turn ... in the wrong direction before fumbling away the puck.

Right idea. Wrong execution. And piled on top, possibly, too many changes too quickly.

Listen, before I even get going here with this week's Drive, let me acknowledge the herd of overpassing elephants in the room: Everyone's sick of reading and/or hearing about the Penguins' power play. And I know that because I'm almost as sick of writing and/or speaking about it as I am of watching the damned thing.

It's 37 whiffs in a row now, just six shy of the franchise record of 43 set in the inaugural 1967-68 season, and just 14 shy of the NHL all-time record of 51 belonging to the Maple Leafs, both well within range.

It's bad. So very bad.

Put it another way: Today's the exact one-month mark since this team's most recent power-play goal, Nov. 11 in a 4-0 shutout of the Sabres at PPG Paints Arena, and I've been able to uncover color footage of it:

Yeah, go ahead and get the jokes out of the way about how it was really Buffalo's Erik Johnson who deflected that by his own goaltender, so the streak really could rewind all the way back to Nov. 4 and that 10-2 laugher over the Sharks in San Jose, Calif. 

But check that sequence up there again.

Ring a bell at all?

That's the one I was calling the 'Erik Karlsson play' in a column that same night. And I was going almost over-the-top at finally, finally seeing the Penguins execute a play that's been pivotal to this future Hall of Famer's career but, for some reason, wasn't seeing daylight here. This was it. This was Karlsson dancing at the blue line, weaving through traffic and pinpointing a pass to a forward down low for an easy redirect or rebound.

A couple nights later in Columbus, they pulled it all the way off, albeit at five-on-five:

“I think, with time, you get a feel for what guys like to do," Sidney Crosby would tell me that night at Nationwide Arena. "It’s one thing to see it, but it’s another thing to execute on it. I’d love to connect on a few more of those.”

"There it was," Karlsson would tell me across that same room. "We did it."

Sure did. Then never again. Sid would plant himself in the bottom right corner, achieving little more than boomerang passes back to the right point. Evgeni Malkin would plant himself above the right circle, awaiting the inevitable one-timer that'd go wide or up off the glass. Jake Guentzel would plant himself to the other lip of the crease, always a willing warrior but never big enough to make a big difference. And whoever was on the left side -- that's the position that'd rotate personnel -- would go almost wholly unused, even if if was Kris Letang or Bryan Rust.

Again, so very bad.

Along the way, Mike Sullivan and Todd Reirden, undoubtedly feeling some of the heaviest weight of their respective coaching careers, have turned toward pretty much everyone shy of Regina the kitchen cook for power-play tryouts. Radim Zohorna spent a minute on the top unit. It was Vinnie Hinostroza the other night. There've been others.

Now, it's Puustinen.

I asked Sullivan after this practice if there might be a danger in trying too much from the personnel standpoint.

"Yeah, we have moved a lot of people around in trying to find some success," he'd reply. "I think there's always that fine line between trying to give the guys an opportunity to work through things and, then, when the coaching staff steps in and tries to effect change, whether that be personnel or schematically. I don't think there's any right or wrong answer there. It's more of a feel thing with your group. We're trying to find that fine line of being patient but also trying to be proactive to bring some solutions."

I like the answer. I like this new attempt at a solution, as shown in practice:

PP1: Karlsson at center point, with Geno to his right, and Puustinen, Guentzel and Sid up front

PP2: Letang at center point, with Lars Eller to his left, and Jeff Carter, Reilly Smith and Vinnie Hinostroza up front

Which meant not only that Puustinen was bumped up from PP2 since his season debut Friday in Sunrise, Fla., but also that he'll be stationed in the left circle as a trigger man, as he's been throughout his AHL career, and, of course, sliding into the high slot upon Karlsson's instruction.

He's 25, and it's the chance of a hockey lifetime.

"I know," he'd tell me through that boyish smile while briefly casting a glance to Sid at a nearby stall. "I'm so excited."

But he can't afford to be too excited, right?

"No. These are great players. It's a great opportunity. But I must be myself, play my best hockey."

I've been a proponent of promoting Puustinen for some time. His AHL numbers never amaze, including his modest five goals -- none on the power play -- and five assists over 18 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season. But as a few of his teammates affirmed for me on this day, "He's got the skill to be here, and we've seen that all along," as Marcus Pettersson would word it. I couldn't agree more. Not to overstate it, but think of a gifted point guard in youth basketball, making passes that his friends can't anticipate. That's how Puustinen's looked to me in the minors ever since his arrival from Finland.

And yet, as I see it, if this formation works where the others failed, there's no chance it'll be even principally about Puustinen. It'll be about the impact he has in putting all the other pieces into a proper place.

I spoke here with a handful of other members of the two power-play units about what's really wrong and, to try for as much candor as possible, I simply asked questions without any quoting or attribution. Nothing that could remotely be construed as controversial emerged and, I can safely say, these half-dozen points represented something of a consensus:

• More shots. Duh. Came up repeatedly.

• More turning toward the middle -- and not back to the point -- when the puck's with either low forward. In fact, that was part of this practice.

• Collapse on the net. Not just for rebounds, but as a matter of course.

Allow me to elaborate on this one with an example from two nights ago in Edmonton:

It should be qualified that the Wild operate in a passive penalty-killing system and that they had a forward who'd lost his stick. But watch, anyway, how the Oilers just keep shrinking the Minnesota box ... and shrinking it ... and shrinking it right through Leon Draisaitl's trademark dagger from the right side.

I showed this goal to Karlsson and let him know that, when the Penguins' power play was going well last season -- and there was a six-week span in which it was tops in the league -- this is what it was doing.

"Yeah," he came right back. "That's what we need to do. Take the ice that's there. We're the ones with the puck. We dictate. Instead of making 25-foot passes, let's make 15-foot passes."

Easier said than done, but still very much on the holiday wish list.

• Use the left side.

It's been all but abandoned in recent weeks, no matter who's there. Opponents know that. Opponents lean the other way.

• Tons more movement, in general.

This is legit related to the bullet above. I'd replay scenes from the Philadelphia/Florida trip, but we've all seen enough of the static, rod-hockey approach. Everyone finds their dot, stamps their skate down and doesn't budge.

That works nowhere. And it wouldn't in Edmonton, either, even if there were five of Connor McDavid on the rink. Because the opponent's never forced out of its comfort zone. As some actual opponents have observed of late, the Penguins' power play is excessively easy to defend for this reason alone.

• Crash the crease. Headfirst if needed. As if it were playoffs.

This one won't happen, so I won't waste anyone's time with it, but it came up among the players, so I'm typing it out here as a formal exercise. These Penguins aren't about to become the Senators or Flames in this regard, to put it mildly.

But man, talk about a solution that'd work.

• Someone, anyone, please and pretty please get to the high slot. 

That command Karlsson was barking toward Puustinen?

That's this.

Another Karlsson specialty in Ottawa and San Jose was waiting for a forward to drift back above the hash marks -- basically penetrating the heart of the penalty-kill box -- then feed him for high-percentage, low-traffic shots. That's been almost entirely absent from the Penguins' repertoire. The players with whom I spoke agreed that their only player who'd been doing this was Rickard Rakell before his injury. Even Guentzel, who'd been used this way previously, hasn't been there for weeks.

"Find the soft spot," was how Karlsson worded it for me. "It can be there. It can be anywhere. We all need to be better at it."

In this setting, though, it's on Puustinen, who'll occasionally be at that left faceoff dot -- I teasingly greeted him as "Ovi" upon seeing him here -- but also will be tasked with facing Karlsson in the middle and creating from there, while both Sid and Geno move toward the crease, almost in a straight line.

"I can do it," Puustinen told me. "I've done it before."

When I noted his effort on this specific sequence wasn't exactly excellent on this day, he laughed and replied regarding Karlsson, "I know. I'll learn what he wants."

"The kid's good," Karlsson would tell me of that same scene. "He'll figure it out."

I'll stop here. Again, I'm aware of how tiring this topic must be for all concerned.

I'll just get back to helping the City of Pittsburgh's Bureau of Special Events plan the parade route for Puustinen's first NHL goal.