In the NHL, if you convert 25% of your power plays, you are considered highly successful!
Here are some tips that should help you and your roller hockey team score more goals on your power play opportunities.
Choose the Right Players
Power plays require top notch players during these extra minutes. The players with exceptional stick handling skills, passing skills, shooting skills, and good play making skills should be the ones on the court. Select two separate power play units because your first unit might not always be ready when the opportunity arises.
Move the Puck into the Offensive Zone
If you are starting from deep in your defensive zone, the defenseman should quickly size up the openings in the opponents defense to see where it would be easiest to penetrate the offensive zone. He should skate up and make a pass to the player closest to the opening. Or the center or wingers can skate up the court but the player with the puck should move to the outside boards. This will spread out the defensive configuration and will draw the defender to him. He will need to be ready to make a quick pass to the open man. After the pass, he should be heading toward the net for a rebound or to screen the goaltender.
Your power play unit should include a good play-making defenseman with a good, hard shot. If you are in trouble, you can pass the puck back out to him and he then has the option of shooting or passing to an open player.
Movement without the puck is key. All players should constantly move to open spaces inside and outside of the box to create diagonal passing lanes. You want to keep passing to the open player and lure a defenseman into making a commitment towards you which will open up a player and a quality scoring opportunity.
Dumping the Puck
It is ideal to work the puck into the offensive zone while maintaining possession, but this scenario is not always possible. Aggressive penalty killing units can create turnovers which will lose valuable powerplay seconds. The dump-in is most often used when starting from high in your zone. Here you can use a set play where after the dump-in, the winger will try to beat the defenders to the ball deep in the zone. If the winger gets possession of the puck, he now looks to maintain possession by setting up on the perimeter of the box. He can either pass to the corner or he can execute a wrap-around pass behind the goal.
After your maintain possession, you want to keep passing to the open player to set up a high percentage shot. Remember to keep moving and passing. If you loose possession of the puck, put two men on the puck to try to regain possession. The first man should contain the defender while the second man retrieves the puck. The defensive man will try to tie up the puck against the wall to kill precious seconds off the clock so you need to aggressively get possession back.
There are hundreds of situations that will confront your power play team and listed here are just a few tips to help with your power play percentage. Preparing your power play in practice will greatly help eliminate some of the problems that you will face, and will assist you in being better prepared for the many different power play situations.