San Jose Sharks: How Do They Fix the Power Play?

One of the praises of the San Jose Sharks that were mentioned before the beginning of the season was that they were going to be the most "complete team" in the NHL.

Upgrades on defense (Brent Burns, Colin White, Jim Vandermeer), a stronger offense (the additions of Martin Havlat and Michael Handzus) and an excellent goaltending core (Antti Niemi, Thomas Greiss, Antero Nittymaki) all led many to believe that this would finally be the Sharks' year to win the Stanley Cup.

But this has not been the case.

The Sharks have lost five of their last seven games, and are hanging onto the eight-seed in the Western Conference. Sporadic and inconsistent play has plagued the Sharks during this long stretch, which included a 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers and a 1-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues, two teams the Sharks should have had no problems with.

In addition, the play of the new guys—Brent Burns, Colin White and Martin Havlat—has been less than spectacular. Havlat has just one goal, White has contributed nothing positive and Burns is not exactly living up to the hype, performing way below his season average in points.

Yet, despite all of this, the Sharks are still in the playoffs, and they sit in second in their division, just two points behind Dallas. It is very possible that they could get on a hot streak, play like the San Jose Sharks of old and run away with the Pacific Division.

In order to accomplish this, they need to make several necessary changes to become a more complete team. One such change is their power play.

The Sharks are just two for 29 on their most recent power plays. When the numbers are that bad, it no longer is "unlucky" or "coincidental". No, when a team is two for 29 on the power play, they are just plain bad, and something is not working.

Although they did get one on the power play in Tuesday's game against the Avalanche, the Sharks are simply getting outworked. Too many times do the opposing penalty killers carry the puck from their defensive zone all the way to the other end of the ice before dumping it in, or even getting a scoring chance.

Somebody needs to remind them that they have one extra skater! How hard is it to set up in the offensive zone and just fire pucks to the net? 

The Sharks face major challenges on the power play. If they can't score goals when they have one more skater than their opponent, it's hard to imagine them getting anywhere in the playoffs, or even making it there.

How the Sharks improve on the power play remains a big question. This is something that they will need to work on if they want to bring a Stanley Cup to San Jose.

So what do you guys think? How do the San Jose Sharks fix their struggling power play?