For young NHL players with family ties to the league, they’re often compared to the way their fathers played.
Whether it’s the Tkachuk brothers, top Utah prospect Tij Iginla or even a handful of players to pass through Dallas like Mason Marchment and Max Domi, comparisons on and off the ice are often drawn.
Wyatt Johnston’s father Chuck may have introduced him to playing hockey from a young age on outdoor rinks, but Chuck’s playing career didn’t lead him to the NHL like Wyatt’s has.
However, Johnston is still the subject of a number of comparisons this season to another player who helped raise him in the game.
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Through 31 games this season, Johnston leads the league with 12 power-play goals. No other player has more than eight. His role on the power play is resembling that of Joe Pavelski’s, the former Dallas Star, who housed Johnston during the first two seasons of his NHL career.
“There’s not many guys that can do things in front of the net like he did,” Johnston told The Dallas Morning News recently. “I’ve tried to take as much as I can from him while also adding a little bit of my mix of tricks.”
After years of learning from Pavelski — who will go down as one of the greatest power-play goal scorers of all time — Johnston is making a name for himself, leading a Stars team that has had one of the most lethal and consistent power plays in the NHL early this season.
But it’s not just Johnston responsible for the power play’s success, which is converting at 32.3% currently (No. 3 in the NHL). Three Stars rank in the top four in the league power play points this season. And a commitment to change in the offseason through new leadership has instantly paid off.
After inconsistency on the man-advantage under the leadership of Pete DeBoer and Steve Spott and the power play proving to be a fatal flaw in some playoff runs, the Stars hope they’ll be able to maintain this consistency late into the season — and that it could be the difference to put them over the top.
“Our players have been really dialed in,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “They’re making great plays. Great players making great plays.”
New power play minds
Over their last two Western Conference finals series against the Edmonton Oilers, the Oilers’ power play got better. The Stars’ got worse.
Edmonton went 10-for-27 over the two series, scoring seven of those goals in Games 4-6. The Stars went 5-for-26, about half as productive, and scored just two goals in Games 4-6.
The saying is, “If you can’t beat them, be them.” Stars GM Jim Nill took that to heart when he went out and hired Gulutzan, who ran the Oilers’ power play for his seven seasons with the Oilers.
He turned Edmonton from the league’s worst power play, connecting at just 14.8% in the 2017-18 season before he arrived, to the best in his seven seasons, converting at a league-best 26.8% rate during that time. The personnel didn’t change much, as superstars Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid were there before.
“I felt like after a year with him, I learned a lot about how to run a power play,” former Stars and Oilers head coach Ken Hitchcock said, who had Gulutzan as an assistant in Edmonton for one year. “You think you know until you see the way Gully runs it.”
But when recently asked how much the Stars’ sudden success on the power play through his first two months was because of “the Gulutzan effect,” he responded humbly.
“None,” Gulutzan said. “Neil Graham has done a tremendous job.”
Gulutzan wasn’t the only new addition to the power play. When the Stars fired DeBoer, his right-hand man Spott departed for an assistant job in Boston. Spott had run the Stars’ power play during DeBoer’s three years in Dallas.
Nill already had a man in mind for the job.
Gulutzan and Graham, who was the head coach of the Texas Stars last year, were Dallas’ top two candidates for the head coaching job. Had the Stars not been looking for someone with experience after DeBoer, Graham could’ve earned the head job. But Nill wanted him on the staff regardless and wanted him running the power play, specifically.
“When we were discussing roles prior to the signing and coming on board, that was laid out very clearly,” said Graham, a Stars assistant coach now. “I had experience, obviously, doing that in the minors for a long time. But to do that at the highest level was an excellent opportunity.”
It was somewhat of a unique situation, hiring a head coach and telling him who would run his power play. Gulutzan embraced it, knowing the two could collaborate but also understanding Graham’s path from the minors was quite similar to his own.
“[Graham] and I, 10 years ago, had coffee in Calgary and sat down,” Gulutzan said. “He’s kind of coming up the same path I came up, both coaches of the Texas Stars. We met a couple of times and had a lot of mutual acquaintances, so I heard nothing but great things.
“It was an easy one for me. It was really easy. I had an established relationship with the guy, and it’s worked out really good.”
Both coaches have a similar philosophy. Working with top players like Johnston, Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz, they want them to feel they can play freely. While structure is important, the trust in those players is high.
“It wasn’t necessarily a change. It was about recognizing areas we could add. I think there was a good foundation in place,” Graham said. “Essentially, our job is to manipulate the penalty kill shape, and then our players have done an excellent job of recognizing what’s available.”
On pace for career years
Johnston has been at the helm of the power play — both metaphorically and physically.
Over his four seasons in Dallas, his role on the power play has grown. After scoring just three power play goals in each of his two seasons, he took on a larger role last season, spending time with both units. This season, he’s primarily played the bumper position, scoring many of his goals from the slot and also posing an important netfront presence.
His mentor, Pavelski, did the same, bouncing between bumper and netfront positions throughout his career where he scored 383 of his 476 career goals on the man-advantage.
“Obviously, I watched him a ton and watched what he could do around the net,” Johnston said. “He was definitely a really good guy to watch. And then being a guy that plays around the net now like me, I’ve definitely talked to him a bunch over the years.”
Pavelski was known for being a wizard in front of the net and one of the best at deflections. But an underrated part of his game was what he did on the power play without the puck and his ability to find the right spots.
Graham said that same trait is what has impressed him most about Johnston’s game.
“I think it’s easy to look at the numbers and recognize his finish, but I think what is equally as impressive is if you look where those goals have come from, you have to be intelligent with your work without the puck,” he said. “If you just stand where the final result is seen, you’re probably not going to get that open ice. But he does a very good job of recognizing how to arrive to a pocket of offensive ice and how to present himself as a target to his teammates.”
It certainly helps when Johnston has teammates like Rantanen, Hintz and Miro Heiskanen, who are so skilled in finding the open man. Rantanen is a skilled finisher himself, as is Jason Robertson. Rantanen leads the league with 21 power-play points. Johnston and Robertson are not far behind with 20 and 17, respectively.
Rantanen is on pace to shatter his career high of 40 power play points. Johnston has already set a career-high in power play goals and is only six points away from tying his career-high in power play points.
“When you are feeling it, you feel it, and then things start flowing, and different things open up,” Johnston said. “Confidence is a hell of a drug, and we’ve definitely been feeling it lately.”
As hot as the unit has been, the challenge now for the Stars is consistency. That was an issue in the DeBoer-Spott era. At times, the group was among the league’s best. At others, it was near the league’s worst. That’s why it finished just around 23.7% in three years, 8.6% lower than where the Stars are so far this year.
But Johnston said he believes this group will only continue to trend in the right direction. Their confidence allows them to be one step ahead of the opposite penalty kills — and their talent makes them tough to stop.
“I think the biggest thing is we’ve been doing a really good job of not being that predictable,” he said. “We give teams a lot of different looks and find different ways to get pucks in the net and opportunities around the net, and so I think that’s been a big factor for us this year.
“I think that’s been a big factor for us this year is the coaching staff is giving us our options and then allowing us to just play hockey.”
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