No Edmonton forward got more ice time on the penalty kill than Adam Henrique when the Oilers PK was solid, not great, but solid.
But since Henrique played his last full game due to injury on January 3, the Oil’s PK has gone down the toilet.
Will his return to action provide the secret sauce to help remedy that PK’s woes?
It’s evident that Henrique has lost a step and that this has limited his effectiveness as an even strength player. He’s still a smart, skilled and aggressive player, but he’s a half-step behind in 5-on-5 play. Rookie Samanski providing far more effective two-way play as Edmonton’s third line centre in his five-game audition than Henrique ever provided this year.
But on the PK, it’s as much about reading the play, having the right position and covering off the right passing and shooting lanes as it is about speed and agility, and Henrique still thrives in the d-zone PK.
In the first 42 games of the year, when he led the forwards in ice time at 1:42 per game (with Matt Savoie at 1:40, Mattias Janmark, 1:31, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 1:26, and Vasily Podkolzin 1:00), Edmonton had the 19th best PK in the league, with a clearance rate of 79.3 percent, which is close to the highest clearance rate as we’ve seen since the Oil’s ninth-ranked PK of the 2020-21 season.
PK team 58 g
In the 16 games since that time, Edmonton’s PK has ranked 29th in the NHL with a terrible 69.2 percent clearance rate. That rancid run of penalty killing is a major part of the reason Edmonton failed to string together a long run of wins on its January home stand. In that period, Connor McDavid led Oilers forwards in PK time-on-ice per game, 1:36, then Janmark, 1:34, RNH, 1:29 and Savoie, 1:16.
When it comes to making mistakes on Grade A shots against on the PK, Savoie has made the lowest rate of mistakes of any Oilers forward, just 0.27 per 2 minutes of PK time, with RNH, 0.37, Henrique, 0.39, McDavid, 0.41, Podkolzin, 0.47, and Janmark, 0.78.
One of those things is not like the other. Janmark has struggled immensely to get the job done on the PK, so much so that I can’t see any argument for playing him there, or playing him at all, given he struggles to create anything on the attack at even strength. I’ve admired this player for some time, but his days as an effective NHLer appear to be over. His days as a PK specialist started to unravel last year in the playoffs when he was a fraction slow making stops. Now he seems to be making misreads as well and getting caught out on seam passes and cross-ice passes.
Henrique, Savoie, RNH, Podkolzin and McDavid (if it’s not too much to ask of him) should form the Oil’s PK units, with Samanski getting a shot when he’s inevitably recalled (and the sooner the better on that count).
By way of comparison here are last season’s numbers for the PK, with Janmark doing much better both limiting mistakes on PK Grade A shots against and creating PK shots shorthanded.
2024-25 PK
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