If you have been a fan of the Montreal Canadiens in recent years, you surely have realized that a major flaw of the club is when they have the man advantage. Last season, they were running at a 14.0% success rate on the powerplay. This season, they are slighly better, at 14.3%. But why is the powerplay so ‘pathetic’? One excuse for this season is because the Canadiens continue to be without leading scorer Saku Koivu, who not surprisingly led the team in powerplay points last season. For last season however, there isn’t really an excuse, unless you want to argue that the wrong players were on the powerplay unit, which brings us to a question: Who should have played the powerplay units last season? Below are the stats for last year’s powerplay, you may be somewhat surprised to see who some of the leaders are…
| Player (#) | PP TOI | PPP | Time per PPP |
| Saku Koivu (11) | 278:48 | 22 | 12:40 |
| Richard Zednik (20) | 260:00 | 10 | 26:00 |
| Yanic Perreault (94) | 210:48 | 13 | 16:19 |
| Jan Bulis (38) | 42:36 | 0 | N/A |
| Andrei Markov (79) | 329:16 | 15 | 21:56 |
| Patrice Brisebois (43) | 302:57 | 19 | 15:56 |
| Niklas Sundstrom (37) | 2:45 | 0 | N/A |
| Andreas Dackell (24) | 15:49 | 0 | N/A |
| Doug Gilmour (93) | 194:11 | 9 | 21:34 |
| Oleg Petrov (14) | 94:31 | 3 | 31:30 |
| Donald Audette (82) | 181:48 | 12 | 15:15 |
| Craig Rivet (52) | 187:23 | 7 | 26:45 |
| Joe Juneau (90) | 31:20 | 0 | N/A |
| Randy McKay (21) | 87:50 | 2 | 43:45 |
| Mike Ribeiro (71) | 94:47 | 4 | 23:37 |
| Chad Kilger (25) | 5:00 | 0 | N/A |
| Mariusz Czerkawski (27) | 60:55 | 4 | 15:14 |
| Marcel Hossa (81) | 52:42 | 2 | 26:21 |
| Patrick Traverse (54) | 102:55 | 3 | 34:18 |
| Stephane Quintal (5) | 21:21 | 0 | N/A |
| Jason Ward (17) | 6:16 | 0 | N/A |
| Karl Dykhuis (28) | 5:20 | 0 | N/A |
| Francis Bouillon (51) | 33:00 | 0 | N/A |
| Mike Komisarek (8) | 10:09 | 0 | N/A |
| Ron Hainsey (65) | 26:57 | 0 | N/A |
| Bill Lindsay (22) | 0:38 | 0 | N/A |
Based on the above table, the top 2 forward lines on the powerplay should have looked like this:
1) Czerkawski-Koivu-Audette
2) Gilmour-Perreault-Ribeiro
What’s interesting to note here is that 2 of the top 3 PP performers played at least 11 games in the American Hockey League last season, while another was traded away. Perhaps this is why our powerplay was so anemic last season.
Now, what’s even stranger is that with 2 of the top-6 PP performers gone, the Canadiens’ powerplay has improved through the first month of the season. Below are the PP stats through the first 11 games of the 2003-04 campaign:
| Player (#) | PP TOI | PPP | Time per PPP |
| Sheldon Souray (44) | 28:21 | 2 | 14:11 |
| Andrei Markov (79) | 34:57 | 3 | 11:19 |
| Craig Rivet (52) | 31:43 | 0 | N/A |
| Stephane Quintal (5) | 4:53 | 0 | N/A |
| Patrice Brisebois (43) | 44:08 | 0 | N/A |
| Richard Zednik (20) | 37:47 | 2 | 18:44 |
| Mike Ribeiro (71) | 36:58 | 2 | 18:29 |
| Jan Bulis (38) | 6:51 | 0 | N/A |
| Joe Juneau (90) | 4:39 | 0 | N/A |
| Andreas Dackell (24) | 3:16 | 0 | N/A |
| Marcel Hossa (81) | 32:06 | 0 | N/A |
| Yanic Perreault (94) | 34:05 | 3 | 11:35 |
| Michael Ryder (73) | 35:41 | 2 | 17:43 |
| Donald Audette (82) | 34:29 | 1 | 34:29 |
| Jason Ward (17) | 9:03 | 1 | 9:03 |
| Ron Hainsey (65) | 14:28 | 0 | N/A |
| Niklas Sundstrom (37) | 1:48 | 0 | N/A |
| Steve Begin (22) | 0:51 | 0 | N/A |
| Francis Bouillon (51) | 2:01 | 0 | N/A |
| Christopher Higgins (88) | 0:49 | 0 | N/A |
| Darren Langdon (15) | 0:01 | 0 | N/A |
| Gordie Dwyer (32) | 0:11 | 0 | N/A |
Based on the above table, here’s what the Canadiens Powerplay should look like this season (until Koivu comes back at least):
1) Ryder-Perreault-Ward
2) Zednik-Ribeiro-Audette
An interesting note from each chart is that Marcel Hossa has failed to crack the top-6 in PP performance, yet continues to get top PP time.
A successful powerplay is one of the keys to success for a team to go deep into the playoffs. As you can see above, the Canadiens’ powerplay has not been successful in recent times, and because of that, the team has not been getting the necessary goals scored to thrust them into the playoffs. In order for the team to make the postseason this year, they will need to improve their powerplay. Can the return of Saku Koivu make the difference? Only time will tell.