Is Bill Peters’ transformation nearly complete?

First, it is important to note that it is too early to declare Canes Coach Bill Peters a success. There must be tangible results in the form of playoff berths at a minimum before success is declared. But that said, I have to imagine that most of the Caniac Nation likes the path we are on right now as much as I do and cannot help feeling that those tangible results are on the way.

The personnel part of it which is GM Ron Francis’ job is still a work in progress. The accelerated development of the kids on D sure helps, but other parts of the team might still be a couple years away from being where Francis wants it to be in terms of depth both on the roster and in the system.

But now almost 2 full seasons into Bill Peters’ coaching tenure with a decent number of players equally deep into learning Peters’ system and style, I think it is fair to say that we have a pretty good read on what Bill Peters’ Canes hockey looks like.

At its core, it is not surprisingly a puck possession game somewhat similar to the system in Detroit where he coached under Mike Babcock. But especially now watching it start to be successful, I am gradually gaining an appreciation for what the details of what ‘puck possession’ mean tactically to Bill Peters.

I think it breaks down into 4 parts:

1-Having mobile defensemen who can carry the puck or jump up to be part of the rush

First, it is all about having defensemen who can skate and carry the puck through the middle of the rink if necessary. Gone since Peters arrived are Jay Harrison, Tim Gleason and Brett Bellemore. In are a batch of young players who can all skate and carry the puck. This is important because having a forward always need to carry through the neutral zone and at the same time having defensemen who trail behind the play limits how many options there are at the offensive blue line, makes it reasonably easy to defend and therefore results primarily in a dump and chase system because it is too easy for the defense to take away all of the clean entry options simply by stacking up at the blue line.

2-Options at the blue line

Puck possession is all about gaining the offensive zone. The ability to gain the offensive blue line with possession of the puck at a significantly above average rate is the crux of puck possession hockey. Every single team says that they want to play a puck possession game, but this is the place where it is hard to do and where it is determined if you are actually a puck possession team or if you just aspire to be a puck possession team.

In Bill Peters system, it is all about having multiple options at the blue line and puck carriers who are good at sorting out how to use them. It obviously varies by who gets to where, but the general scheme is to get a forward parked on the blue line at the wall, have the puck carrier (oftentimes a defenseman) coming through the middle with speed and a forward coming with the puck carrier in a different lane. The result is that you get 4 decent options to enter the zone – 1-Pass to forward at the line; 2-Carrier keeps it; 3-Pass to parallel forward; 4-Dump to place where parallel forward can win race. If the Canes can get the puck carrier coming through the middle with speed and help in the next lane, things almost always end well in terms of gaining entry. If the defense bunches to the middle to try to defend the 2 players on the rush, the puck gets moved to the forward on the wall for easy entry. If the defense tries to step up 2v2 at the blue line, the puck can usually be dumped to a place where the player without the puck can get there. And increasingly, if the defense focuses too much on defending the passing options, the defenseman clearly has the green light to carry the puck deep in the zone. In the past week, we have seen Pesce and Hanfin carry deep and circle the net in Joni Pitkanen style.

It is easier to see on the power play entries because in that situation, it is easier to start from the one end, move as a unit and get everyone to their assigned spots since there is less pressure in the defensive zone and less randoms from line changes and/or things being disrupted early in the process.

3-A system to keep the puck once you have it in the offensive zone

For me, the most astounding part of Bill Peters’ transformation has been his ability to take the players he had and get them play a puck possession game inside the offensive zone. The basic tenet of Bill Peters’ system once you gain entry into the offensive zone is to keep the puck on your sticks for the rest of the shift unless you get at least a medium-grade scoring chance. In less fancy terms, Peters has somehow transformed the Canes into a strong puck cycling team with personnel that I would have said could not possibly do this before he did it. The early days of Jordan Staal’s line were very simple. With decent skating defenseman and Jordan Staal’s ability to navigate the neutral zone, the line was pretty good at getting the puck into the offensive zone. In the early days of that line, they were then pretty good at cycling the puck on the boards. To this day, the core of their game is getting possession of the puck, getting it to the offensive zone and then not playing defense after that for the rest of the shift. Along the way, they have become much better at converting this into scoring chances to boot.

The fact that Peters could build an effective puck cycling line with Jordan Staal, Andrej Nestrasil and Joakim Nordstrom is not that surprising. The first 2 are big bodies with size, strength and decent mobility. But watching the other lines makes it clearer that this is not specific to this line but rather a core part of his system. The reason that Kris Versteeg and Eric Staal continue to win the Corsi battle and be nearly break even players despite not scoring a ton is because they do the same thing. Eric Staal is not scoring a ton, but he is playing with the puck on his stick behind the net in the offensive zone. And despite not being power forward types, Di Giuseppe and Versteeg get the rotation and positional part of where the puck is going next on the cycle such that they keep it by knowing where to receive it and where to go with it. The most striking example of how ingrained this is for Peters’ system is watching the Skinner/Rask/Lindholm line. Jeff Skinner is now spending a good amount of time doing his whirling dervish act going back and forth behind the net looking for a passing lane or chance to wheel out in front.

4) Using the points to either reset or find 2-pass paths to the front of the net

The last part is still a work in progress but is getting better. When a player gets possession of the puck and a little bit of time and space, the first look should almost always be to scoring areas, but most often those passing lanes are crowded. Also, when cycling the puck, there are times when the other forwards have not had time to get there yet. Rather than chucking the puck at random and underneath the umbrella of continuing to possess the puck, the path to the front of the net often goes most easily through the defenseman at the point. Moving the puck there buys time for other players to get to the front of the net, and if the first pass happens quickly and cleanly, it often opens up a passing or shooting lane to get the puck to the front of the net at the same time the other forwards are arriving there.

The basics of the system are not rocket science, nor are they new inventions. But the intricacy of consistently getting players to sort out where they should be on the rush in game action when there are opposing players trying to take things away is impressive. Even more impressive is Peters’ ability to take a team whose personnel would not have seemed ideal for a cycling game and getting them to do it effectively.

I think we are only on the cusp of seeing it fully work. Jordan Staal’s line did a decent job of playing puck possession hockey on the walls in the offensive zone fairly quickly after being put together almost 3 months ago, but it is really only over the past 3-4 weeks that things have really clicked offensively. While the young defensemen are playing well, I also think there is another higher gear to be gained as they learn to read the rush for when teams take away other options and leave them a path to ‘go forward’. We have recently seen more of Hanifin, Pesce and Slavin carrying the puck deep when the defense focuses too much on taking away passes, but I think there is more offense to be had there. And once that happens, all of the other entries become even easier.

Here is hoping that the next level of success with Peters’s system arrives in early March just in time to carry the team to a late season surge and possibly shock the entire NHL.

Go Canes!