Are penalty kills different in the second period?

Let's take a look at a question that my pal brought up last week.

About a week ago my pal Prashanth Iyer sent me a text with an article idea.

“Do coaches approach penalty kills in the second period differently than they do in the first and third during the long change?”

It’s something that, as Prashanth probably expected, sent me into those hockey wormholes that I can’t stop thinking about. So over the past week I spoke to coaches and players about it, and during the second period, with the long change, I got overly caught up watching special teams on various games.

Before we get to the findings from those conversations, let’s look at some theories and set some context for why a team might use different tactics on the penalty kill in the middle stanza.

In the second period (and even-numbered overtimes) teams have the long change to their bench, meaning defending players have a longer path to cover to make a change, essentially have to gain the red line, at a minimum, to make a change.

For penalty killing teams, that added distance can change the equation of how and when a player goes off for a change. When it’s simply a race to your own blue line for a change, that’s a pretty limited risk compared to crossing most of the neutral zone. It’s also why, I would surmise, you see more extended example of defenders getting caught for marathon shifts in the middle period.

So I took this question and line of thinking with me to various places, into NHL locker rooms, NCAA interview sessions, and some other phone calls I made with NHL coaches.

University of Michigan coach Brandon Naurato told me his team’s approach doesn’t change for the second period, but he was now intrigued to learn if any coaches or teams did alter their approach schematically.

Two NHL assistant coaches I spoke to, under anonymity, said for their teams it’s not a schematic change, but there is an emphasis on players to be smarter when the long change is in play.

“If you are a good team, your penalty killers are probably already some of your smarter players, if anything I think you might get some more dumb decisions from the power play in the second period,” one of the assistant coaches said. “That’s something that might change things up a bit, but that might be positive.”

So to answer the initial question, no coaches don’t make changes to the second period penalty kill, but there is some added discussion about situation awareness.

Interestingly, however, there was some feedback from players about how second period special teams impact execution and decision with the puck on their stick.

I conscripted my pal Owen Newkirk to ask players in Dallas about this for me, and he spoke with Stars center Radek Faksa, who talked about on the penalty kill in the second period you have to be more careful with where the puck is placed on dump-ins, AKA do a better job of keeping it away from the goalie.

Andrew Copp, who kills penalties for the Detroit Red Wings, told me something similar, about how in an ideal situation, so much of the penalty killing clearances are based on where and how soft of a dump you can make to potentially take advantage of the trapezoid that limits goalie puckhandling.

“Some years back we actually had a problem where we had penalty killers without enough puck skills,” one assistant coach said. “We were good at penalty killing until we got the puck on our stick, I’m not going to give you the year or names, but our inability to make those proper clearances where something we worked hard to fix.”

Let’s go to the opposite side of things here, the goalies on the power play, who might have the chance to fling quick passes up the opposite side on a change.

In today’s NHL, now one does it more than Igor Shesterkin with the New York Rangers, while the St. Louis Blues also have two goalies, Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer, who like to swing stretch passes whenever possible.

But not every goalie gets this opportunity, in fact, in Detroit, Red Wings goalie Cal Talbot told me that within the Detroit system he and John Gibson are actively told to not rush stretch passes when they have the chance. If there’s a clear breakaway, Talbot said, they’d probably get the green light, but in general the Red Wings coaching staff prefers to allow the natural build-up through the neutral zone.

I brought this up to another assistant coach, and he said he’s worked for some coaches that are willing to push the pace in that space and others are more conservative.

“For each highlight reel pass to a chance from the goalie, there are a bunch of other times it becomes a slow entry and you might as well just have waited,” they said. “I think that’s the reality and most coaches aren’t excited about risk.”

The game is faster, that’s the hockey cliche now, but it’s also true. A player catching a puck at the opposite blue line is standing still and has to stop and start with possession, while the defenders, likely rushing off the bench still have momentum to close, likely coming at full speed.

So, not sure if this answers Prashanth’s question properly, but it does bring some context that I’ll be using when watching games this week. If there are any other “thinker” questions like this that we should dive into, please leave them in the comments or shoot me an email, I love taking nerdy hockey questions and learning something.