Penalty kill trumps power play in Hitchcock's mind
/The St. Louis Blues enter Tuesday night's action with the ninth-ranked power play in the league (19.9 percent), while owning the third-best penalty kill (85.8 percent).
Ken Hitchcock puts more stock in the latter than the former.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch points out that aside from struggling to score goals of late (although still fourth in the league in goals per game), the team has only converted four of its last 57 chances with the man advantage.
“I’m less worried about the power play and more worried about killing penalties,” Hitchcock said. “I’ve seen a lot of bad power plays do really well in the playoffs, but I’ve never seen any team play worth a (dang) if you can’t kill penalties. And I’m really proud of the way we killed penalties Sunday.”
On the PK: “That to me is more of the focus,” he said. “You can live with a poor power play and still win hockey games, but you can’t survive if you can’t kill penalties ... because you’re whole game falls apart, you’re nervous, your uptight, you panic. We’ve got to be great killing penalties and that’s what I was so happy about, what a great job we did.”