Montreal GM Marc Bergevin: 'There's not a magic wand' to fix power play
The Montreal Canadiens struggled mightily on the power play in the first round of the playoffs. The Habs ranked 15th out of 16 in power-play percentage by going 1-for-20 on the man advantage, and while the team ranked 23rd in the league in the regular season on the power play, their 16.5 percent success rate then was much better than it is now.
Given that Montreal had Monday through Thursday to work on the power play in between series, fans probably hope to see some improvement in the second round. But general manager Marc Bergevin did not sound too optimistic when he spoke to the media about the man-advantage following practice Wednesday.
"You want to get better," Bergevin told reporters. "We will try to get better, but there’s not a magic wand saying this is why it’s not working. If you look at Tampa Bay, one of the best offensive teams in the league, and they had a hard time scoring against Detroit … their power play I don’t think is very good, either.
"Playoffs is difficult … all we can do at this time is keep working at it, spending time practising, trying new things. There’s options, but we all know P.K. (Subban) has the shot — probably one of the best shots in the league. They take that away, so we have to work around other things."
Tampa Bay finished 14th on the power play through the first round, one spot above the Canadiens. The Lightning converted on 6.7 percent of their power-play chances.
(h/t Montreal Gazette)
Photo by AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz
