Thunder has powerless power play

The Thunder’s 2-1 shootout win over Tulsa on Wednesday night highlighted the team’s most obvious strength and its most damaging early-season flaw.

After going scoreless on four power-play chances, Wichita’s conversion percentage shrunk to 4.1, easily the lowest in the 28-team ECHL. The Thunder scored as many short-handed goals in a Tuesday loss to Allen – two – as it has scored power-play goals this year.

Wichita has struggled to find the right personnel to take advantage. For example, Danick Gauthier was an ECHL All-Star last year but has no goals through nine games. The opportunistic nature of the power play hasn’t gotten him going and the unit is suffering as a result.

Gauthier’s lack of production isn’t the only problem, though.

“You’ve just got to simplify it,” Thunder coach Kevin McClelland said. “We’re setting it up, then we’ll throw a bad pass, and that’s when the other team is jumping on us all the time. We have opportunities and lanes to shoot the puck to the net, and we don’t. We want to make that extra pass, and it ends up being a bad pass.

“The other things is, we can’t win draws (face-offs). Every draw we lose. (Tulsa) got eight shots off of lost draws in our (defensive) zone. Then it’s back to the point, to the net. Their power-play looks good because they win the draw in their own zone and get to set it up. Any time we’re in the offensive zone, we lose a draw.”

Many of the Thunder’s issues have been somewhat marginalized by goaltender David Shantz. After not playing professionally for five seasons, the 29-year-old Shantz has played beyond his previous measures after he was the No. 37 selection in the 2004 NHL Draft.

Through a seven-game sample size, Shantz is on track for career bests in goals-against average (2.28) and save percentage (.924). He has 74 saves in his last two starts.

“His pedigree is unbelievable,” McClelland said. “… He’s a high draft pick, he’s got good numbers, he’s got a good pedigree and he’s just such a professional. You could really feel that when I talked to him in the summertime on the phone. He was a real gentleman.”

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 6:35 PM with the headline "Thunder has powerless power play."