Vancouver Canucks: Keys to Fixing the Canucks Power Play

The Vancouver Canucks finally broke out of their scoring slump with a big 5-1 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday night that saw four of the five goals scored in the first period.

For the Canucks, however, just two of those five goals were scored on the power play. Normally that is a good statistic, but the Canucks were just 2-for-10 on the PP last night and have scored just four times in their last 25 opportunities with the man advantage. It isn't every night that a team gets to go on the power play ten times, and the Canucks need to take advantage of all their opportunities.

Alain Vigneault needs to keep Mikael Samuelsson off of the point on the power play. Samuelsson, who was once a specialist on the power play, has struggled over the last half season or so on the PP and is no longer effective.

The Canucks lost Christian Ehrhoff and his big shot in the off-season and need to utilize Sami Salo and Alex Edler's strong point presences and shots on the power play. Currently, Vigneault has the two playing together, but he should split them up abnd have one on each power play unit. 

In addition to the Canucks' struggles from the point with the man advantage, the Canucks need to hit the net. Too often are their shots blocked or missing the net altogether; in order to score, you must get the puck to the goalie. The Canucks need to pick their shots better and the power play will improve.

To further advance the power play success of the team, the Canucks need to get a man in front of the net at all times. The return of Ryan Kesler has fixed this issue for the No. 1 power-play unit, but he second power-play line of Cody Hodgson, Chris Higgins and Alex Burrows doesn't have any one who has a strong net presence. Someone has to be in front to deflect the puck or pick up the garbage and put it in the back of the net on rebounds.

There are several aspects of the Canucks game that still need to improve, but after what was arguably their best game of the young season against Nashville last night, the biggest issue the Canucks seem to have as a team is their power play. They are currently operating at 18 percent, but middle-of-the-pack special teams isn't good enough to continuously win.

When the Canucks get their power play going, they win, and they win a lot.

They aren't far off from executing their PP properly, but they aren't there yet.