Building the Perfect Power Play for the 2023 NHL Season

If you were tasked with putting together the best power-play unit in the NHL this season, who would make the cut? That's a question we decided to tackle, and with so many players who put the fear of goals in penalty-killing units and goaltenders across the league, it's a genuinely difficult question to answer.

After all, would you put together a unit of shooters that can bury shots in the blink of an eye, a group of passers that could make defenders dizzy with their ability to make passes all over the ice, guys who could take a goalie's eyes away by parking down low or one of everything? After all, we're talking about picking five players, and finding the right mix is nigh impossible.

Impossible or not, we're going to give it a shot here. The criteria we're going with takes into account the raw numbers. Goals and assists count for everything because that means you're able to pile them up.

We're also considering primary assists on the power play because, yeah, it's the pass that leads directly to the goal. Secondary assists are cool and all, but we're going with primary helpers as the definitive choice.

We'll also look at how much time a player is on the power play. Playing a lot of minutes with a man advantage means their team trusts them in those situations to get results.

There's also the reputation factor. If an opposing team goes out of its way to ensure that one player isn't the one that beats them, that's about as complimentary as it gets. Although that could be inferred by the stats they put up.

We are positive there will be disagreements about the five players we run with, especially because we're not factoring in positions. We could go with a five-forward setup, and you'll just have to let us know in the comments how much your favorite defenseman needs to be involved.

Stats courtesy of NHL.com

Let's get the easy choice out of the way first.

Connor McDavid gets the call for the ultimate power play because having the best scorer in the league, the best player in the league, on the ice when you've got the man advantage is the easiest decision to make in hockey.

McDavid has the most power-play points and assists this season as well as the most primary assists in the NHL. McDavid has 63 power-play points, and the next closest is teammate Leon Draisaitl with 55. Twenty-seven of those were more than likely set up by McDavid in some way. For what it's worth, McDavid is seven power-play goals behind Draisaitl for most in the league.

McDavid is the ultimate weapon on the power play. He can score, he can set up anyone else on the ice and he can control the puck. What's wild is he's played the ninth most minutes on the power play in the league, and he's played 79.4 percent of the Oilers' power-play minutes, third most in the league behind Alex Ovechkin and Draisaitl.

The Oilers have the No. 1 power play in the NHL, and when they can roll out McDavid for basically one minute and 40 seconds out of every two minutes, opposing penalty kills are in big trouble because of it.

McDavid is almost certainly going to be the MVP this season, and if you took away his power-play points, he'd still be in the top-25 in the NHL in scoring. Heck, just by his power-play points, he'd be in the top-65 in scoring.

If Connor McDavid wasn't on your ultimate power-play unit I want to know why, and the reasons have to be better than, "I don't like him."

It was really tempting to put a power-play unit together without a defenseman, and I'm not saying it can't be done and be incredible. However, some players make it impossible to ignore them. Case in point: Cale Makar.

Makar is tied for second among defensemen in power-play scoring with Rasmus Dahlin and one point behind Quinn Hughes. Pretty good, right? He's also played 12 fewer games than both of them. That changes the view quite a bit.

He's tied with six other defensemen for fourth in power-play goals and tied with Dahlin and Dallas' Miro Heiskanen for second in assists, but he's first in primary assists on the power play.

He won the Norris Trophy for a boatload of reasons last season, and his power-play prowess was certainly part of that. Despite dealing with some injuries recently, his production has been elite among defensemen around the league.

Every great power play needs to have someone to control the game from the point, and having an elite power-play defenseman to play quarterback on it makes the goal-scoring machine run efficiently.

Would it be more fun to have another shooter at the top of the zone to rip slap shots? Sure, it would, but why take big shots from that far out when you can have a guy pass it to players who are closer to the net and can do the same thing?

Makar is as good as it gets on the blue line in general, but on the power play, he turns into an even more dangerous player on the ice. Sign us up for that every day of the week.

The first thing that comes to mind when we think of Nikita Kucherov is his ability to score the magnificent goals we see on highlight reels for days and weeks at a time. He has some of the best hands and an incredible shot. That's what makes the reason for his inclusion in our ultimate power play so interesting: It's not his shot.

Kucherov is one of the best setup men in the NHL on the power play. The highly skilled Russian is fourth in the league in power-play points with 44, and only eight have been goals. His 36 power-play assists are second behind McDavid's 42, and 22 of those are primary helpers, also second to McDavid and his 25.

When you watch the Tampa Bay Lightning power play—fourth best in the NHL, for the record—Kucherov sets up from one of the faceoff circles while Steven Stamkos and his legendary shot camps out in the other.

Sure, Kucherov could shoot from there, but with Stamkos across the way and Brayden Point in the middle of the ice and Alex Killorn down low, there are a lot of weapons for opposing PKs to keep track of. When teams try to keep everyone honest, it opens up lanes for Kucherov to distribute, and does he ever.

We've got the ultimate player in McDavid, the elite power-play quarterback in Makar, and now a supreme distributor in Kucherov. But we're going to need some firepower...

What more could you ask for in a shooter than to have a 6'6" tower of power that can fire pucks at nearly 100 miles an hour from the circle? That's what Tage Thompson brings to the table for this fantasy unit.

Thompson with his blazing (and accurate) shot has piled up power-play goals at a strong rate this season. He's tied for third in goals with New York Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad behind Draisaitl and McDavid with 19. Having 19 of 44 goals on the power play means he's to be feared and given virtually all the defensive attention possible by opposing penalty killers.

Thompson needs but a second and an opening of any kind to rip a shot past a goalie on the power play, but even if he's not camped out in the circle, he's capable of scoring from anywhere around the zone.

The Sabres power play is one of the more dangerous units in the league due in part to Thompson's prolific scoring. They're sixth in the league with the man advantage scoring 24.3 percent of the time.

What's most stunning about Thompson's power-play output is he's played 61.5 percent of the Sabres' power-play minutes this season. That ties him with Max Domi and Nick Schmaltz for 98th in the NHL. It makes you wonder what he could do if he were playing more often, although it doesn't seem to be hurting his numbers—or Buffalo's—that much.

And while Thompson's shot is terrifying, sometimes you need something more than a bombastic shot for the ultimate power play. Sometimes you need a legend.

There's no one else in the NHL more prolific on the power play than Alex Ovechkin.

When the Washington Capitals go on the power play, you can bet that Ovechkin will be out there either until he or his teammates score or the penalty is killed.

Ovechkin leads the NHL in percentage of time spent on his team's power play at an astounding 96.4 percent. He's played more than 324 minutes this season just on the man advantage, and their power play ranks 12th in the league.

Ovechkin cracked 40-plus goals for the 13th time in his career this season, up to 42 already with 14 on the power play. He's averaged 16.6 goals per season on the power play in his career and scored 299 of his 822 goals with the extra man.

When Ovechkin hits the ice for the power play, you know exactly where he's going to be and what the game plan for the unit is when they're out there. Even with all that advanced knowledge, it still doesn't help stop him from scoring.

Ovechkin's reputation precedes him regarding the power play—and just scoring goals in general. When facing off against the Capitals, you know that if you take a penalty against them, you're running a real risk of giving up a goal really quickly, solely because of him.

Yes, there are other highly skilled players on those power-play units, but none of them have the kind of presence Ovechkin does. That's what helps make him the easy choice for the final piece of the ultimate power-play unit.