NHL Power Play Specialists
The greatest goalscorer on the power play in NHL history is Alexander Ovechkin, because he has the most goals.
Nobody's mad if you stop there. The job of the power play is to put the puck in the net and Alex Ovechkin has done that more than anyone, both with the man advantage and just generally. As of this writing, Ovechkin has scored 35.83% of his 921 NHL goals a man up; this will have changed by the time you're reading. 20% of NHL goals, give-or-take, are scored on the power play, so Ovechkin is conspicuously more effective with the man advantage than the statistical median NHL player. Which, since Ovechkin is quite a lot better than the statistical median NHL player, is not a surprise when you think about it.
Of course the power play is an advantage, it opens up more ice for the attacking team. Better players get more time on the power play, thus scoring a higher proportion of their goals there, and they should, because their skills mean they achieve more. This all makes sense after three seconds of thought. That the best scorers generally are also the best scorers on the man advantage is true, but uninteresting. If I had, say, the 2024–25 Anaheim Ducks, who were a decent team despite having one of the twenty worst power plays since recordkeeping began, I would not want you to tell me that I could use Leon Draisaitl; I knew that already. I would want to know what sort of player might make an impact disproportionate to his 5-on-5 skill with the man advantage, and might therefore be someone I can get. What I want, then, is a measure of a player as a power play specialist, the extent to which his powerplay productivity stood out from his normal scoring skills, and hopefully an idea of what type of player that is.
