Penguins Power Play: Yeo Can’t Make it Go

Back in late January, I asked Dave Molinari what qualified Mike Yeo as a power play coach.  He said that it is hard to characterize a coach’s credentials because there was no definitive background that would qualify a person as a coach.  I’ve searched through Mike Yeo’s background — a minor league low-scoring winger, and maybe there is no definitive background for coaching, but that doesn’t seem to be what you would want to be on the resume of your power play coach.  The Penguins were underachieving and Ray Shero saw fit to fire Therrien.  That turned out to be a great decision.  It was puzzling to me at the time that the part of the staff that the Penguins kept was the man responsible for running the power play, when in fact, power play production was a major part of the reason that the Pens were not playing up to par.  If the team needed a jump start of some type that might come from a new coach, the power play could have used one as well.  That didn’t happen and the Penguins are stuck with Mike Yeo.  The power play is now an alarming one for twenty-four.  It didn’t kill the Penguins against the Flyers, but it could cut their playoff run short if they don’t get it straightened out against Washington.  At least the Flyers were a good penalty-killing team.  The Capitals are not.