Golden Knights focus on improving penalty kill

When Pete DeBoer went into the video lab during the NHL pause and did a deep dive on the Golden Knights, he liked most of what he saw.

The Knights won 11 of their final 13 games and finished first in the Pacific Division, standing out in most of the important analytics, as well.

But the one area that didn’t please DeBoer from his first two months as coach was the penalty kill, and the Knights dedicated the latter portion of Saturday’s practice at City National Arena to short-handed play.

“I think we were better than the numbers indicated, but we were still giving up too much,” DeBoer said. “We’ve had a concentration on special teams here the last couple days. Both special teams are going to be critical come playoff time and once we get to Edmonton.”

DeBoer’s teams have a history of success on the penalty kill.

New Jersey led the league in that category twice in his four seasons as coach, including an NHL-record 89.6 percent efficiency in 2011-12 when the Devils reached the Stanley Cup Final.

The Sharks ranked eighth overall (81.7 percent) during DeBoer’s first four seasons in San Jose and were a league-best 88.3 percent on the penalty kill when he was fired Dec. 11.

When DeBoer took over Jan. 15 replacing Gerard Gallant, he inherited the 19th-ranked unit in the league at 78.9 percent.

Under Gallant, the Knights pressured the puck up the ice on the penalty kill and played a more passive system in the defensive zone.

DeBoer turned that philosophy 180 degrees, with the penalty killers hanging back to challenge entries at the blue line. Once opposing power plays set up in the zone, the Knights aggressively hounded the puck in hopes of forcing a turnovers.

“That’s something I think we’re really trying to harp on and really trying to nitpick at right now,” forward Reilly Smith said. “When Pete came along, we made a couple tweaks in our penalty kill and it was something that we were getting better at, but it took some time.”

The Knights were slow to adapt to the system changes implemented by DeBoer and assistant coach Steve Spott. In 22 games under DeBoer, they ranked 29th in the league at 70.7 percent.

The Knights gave up three straight power-play goals against Winnipeg (2-for-2) and Calgary (1-for-1) before staying out of the penalty box in the regular-season finale at Edmonton on March 9.

For the season, the Knights finished 27th overall in penalty killing at 76.6 percent.

“I think some of the things we looked at were just being harder on clears, being 100 percent on those pucks when it’s a 50-50 puck,” defenseman Jon Merrill said. “Make sure those pucks get 200 feet all the way down the rink. I think we did a good job buying in to blocking shots and into some of those systems.

“It was just a new system, so I think it’s guys getting more used to it, looking at some more video and fine-tuning a few areas.”

Based on practice Saturday, forwards Nicolas Roy and Chandler Stephenson will see increased time on the penalty kill. DeBoer also reunited William Karlsson and Smith, who have 11 short-handed goals combined since the 2017-18 season.

“I think the pause allows you to kind of look at your whole group and your team and combinations and analytics,” DeBoer said. “When we dove into our group and particularly our penalty killing, (the Karlsson-Smith duo) was something that we wanted to try when we started up again.”

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.