A stationary power play is easier to defend, so make the penalty killers defend the entire offensive zone by using all of the space available.
You often hear people describe sports leagues as copycat leagues. Whenever a team does something different, the rest of the league is quick to adopt their own version of it. In the NHL, over the last several years, teams have largely adopted the 1-3-1 as their default Power Play formation. While this is certainly dangerous due to the multitude of passing and shooting options it presents, it is also a look teams have seen before and know how to defend it. They may not always be successful, but teams know what to expect.
Today I’m going to talk about what I think should be a team’s default Power Play formation, something that no one really does in 5v4 situations. This is to run the power play from behind the net. I installed this with the team I coached this past season and it worked quite well.
