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Hitch says killing penalties is more important than scoring on the power play

Ken Hitchcock

Head coach Ken Hitchcock of the St. Louis Blues leads his team against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center on February 20, 2013 in Denver, Colorado. The Avalanche defeated the Blues 1-0 in overtime. (February 19, 2013 - Source: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images North America)

Interesting comment below from Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock, on the fact his team has scored just twice in its last three games while going a combined 0-for-11 on the power play.

“I’ve seen a lot of (teams) who have had bad power plays do really well in the playoffs, but I’ve never seen any team play worth a damn if you can’t kill penalties,” Hitchcock said, per the Canadian Press. “It’s more on can you kill the penalty at the right time because you can live with poor power plays and still win hockey games. But you can’t survive if you can’t kill penalties because your whole game falls apart, you’re nervous, you’re uptight, you panic and we’ve got to be great killing penalties.”

Interesting, because he’s right about teams with bad power plays doing well in the playoffs. In fact, the last three teams to win the Stanley Cup have all put up less-than-stellar power-play numbers in the postseason. Chicago converted at just 11.4 percent last year; Los Angeles was at 12.8 percent the year before; and Boston was at 11.4 percent they year before that.

Not that those three teams were happy about their lack of productivity with the man advantage, but Hitchcock’s right that it didn’t ultimately cost them.

Of course, what all three of those teams did well -- in addition to killing penalties -- was score considerably more goals than their opponent while five on five. Do that and converting on the power play becomes less of a necessity.

And all that said, there have certainly been Cup champions in the recent past, like the 2010 ‘Hawks and 2009 Penguins, that have relied on their time with the man advantage to score some big goals for them. We’re sure, if given a choice, Hitchcock would prefer a good power play to a bad one.