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1) Patrik Laine. Vladimir Tarasenko. Jack Eichel. Those are a few of the names that come to mind when you think about one-man shooting galleries on the power play.
That's why I was surprised to see the Calgary Flames had a player on their roster take a larger percentage of the shot attempts than any of those guys -- and it wasn't one of their big named forwards. It was Kris Versteeg.
Versteeg accounted for 36% of the shot attempts while he was on the ice at 5v4. That was the 4th highest percentage, and his 37.37 shot attempts per 60 minutes ranked him 3rd in the league among forwards.
The Flames clearly game planned to get him the puck around the net as much as possible, which is somewhat funny considering he was an extremely late addition to the roster and making pennies.
You could argue whether or not that was the right plan, although Versteeg made the most of his opportunities as he finished tied for 1st on the roster in 5v4 goals and led the top power play unit in points per 60.
It'll be interesting to see how his usage changes this year, if at all. Versteeg enjoyed personal success on the PP but I'd trim his workload a bit and try to get guys like Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau -- better shooters -- a larger percentage of the looks.
2) Looking through the 2016-17 numbers for defensemen, I couldn't help but notice T.J. Brodie was last (70/70) among eligible players in terms of individual Corsi For% on the power play as he took just 10% of the shots. No other eligible defenseman took less than 13%.
From 2013-16, Brodie averaged 16.19 shot attempts per 60 at 5v4 and 7.10 at 5v5. Last season, he averaged 10.29 attempts per 60 at 5v4 and 5.91 at 5v5. Those are big declines.
Brodie has always been a pass-first guy, and always will be. That's fine, but I think he really needs to make an effort to shoot a *little* more to keep defenses honest. As good of a passer as he is, it's easier to defend him than it should be. Players can cheat -- there's little reason to dart out to cover the point -- because they know he's probably not going to shoot anyway.
If he becomes a little more selfish and takes an extra shot here and there, I think it will help him moving forward.
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