The value of turning your penalty kill into a power kill

We typically centre most of our hockey conversations, effort, and analysis around what happens during the course of 5-on-5 play. Every once in a while, we'll really get wild and shift our attention for a second towards power play formations and execution with the man advantage.

As an analyst, I'm certainly guilty of thinking about the sport somewhat myopically through that prism myself. All of which is perfectly understandable, given how much of each game is spent in that state of play. Not to mention the working connection we've established between even strength performance, and future outlook at both the team and individual player level. 

Something we collectively don't devote nearly enough bandwidth to is the other side of the special teams ledger -- the penalty kill.

As the NHL game has evolved and the impetus to create offence wherever possible has followed suit, the way smart teams have gone about maximizing the minutes they're forced to play shorthanded has as well. So let's take a look at the commonalities between the most effective penalty killing combinations, and how teams have gone about unleashing them as, what can only be affectionately coined, a Power Kill™ instead.