Playoffs are a long haul. By the time you get into rounds three and four, your morning wake-up becomes a self-run physical exam that exposes your potential for that night's game. Wrist: swollen and stiff. Shoulder: sore, but better than yesterday. Ankle: that's gonna need a little work.
It's a fairly simple point to plot on a graph — the more you play, the harder it is on your body. This is why coaches that effectively manage their players' ice time give their team the best shot at a deep playoff run.
Like every rule, there are exceptions — you can play Duncan Keith, who's basically the Energizer Bunny, minutes comparable to what Corey Crawford gets. You can play Chris Pronger, the positionally savvy monolith that he is for entire Cup runs without having to take him off the ice.
But most players aren't like that. Most are actual humans.
Rested minutes are more valuable minutes — you're legs can feel weightless on the forecheck, you can drive wide with some speed, and you can actually challenge opponents in the passing lane instead of just kinda....being out there. A tired buzzsaw-of-a-player can look like a disinterested Alexei Kovalev (redundant?) in a hurry.
All coaches would like to play their best players in every situation including the penalty kill, but that can detract from their offensive awesomeness.
As noted by Wysh yesterday: With the Detroit Red Wings, Mike Babcock keeps perennial Selke Trophy winner Pavel Datsyuk off the penalty kill (for the most part) so he's better able to use his skills in every other situation. Vancouver Canucks Coach Alain Vigneault does the same with the Sedins.
I think it's safe to say that strategy has rewarded those coaches many times over.
You have to constantly monitor your players' video-games-esque power bars if you hope to make a deep playoff run (by checking body language, staying up on their TOI — actually asking guys how they feel just wields unflinching lies). This is especially essential in the early rounds for teams planning on seeing conference and league finals, and what puts team depth at such a premium.
If you have that talent further down the line-up, it does more for your team than provide a couple of unexpected goals when the stars aren't producing. Just as importantly, depth allows you to give those stars the opportunity to be at their freshest and best because they don't have to be on the ice every important minute of a game; which, in the playoffs, is all of them.
Once the game starts and you're on the bench, players want every minute they can get, but ice time is like some Ol' Roy kibble to a dog — the right amount keeps them happy and healthy, but if you give one as much as he wants, he'll kill himself by taking too much. (And of course, not enough is an absolute crime). It's up to the coach to dole it out responsibly.
The average ice time for the league's top 20 scorers — all forwards — hovers somewhere just north of the 20 minute mark, with Corey Perry seeing the most ice time at 22:08 per game (Ilya Kovalchuk leads forwards with an absurd 22:33).
Thomas Vanek of the Buffalo Sabres (17:21) and Old Balls Selanne, complete with his loose skin (17:57), rock the least minutes, but they use those damn efficiently.
Certain players regularly commit the sin of staying on the ice after their linemates have changed, with Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk of the New Jersey Devils being examples 1A and B. This isn't a crisis when you're dealing with the best players in the world and the regular season — them playing winded is more effective than most people fresh.
But when it comes to the marathon of playoffs, Bruce Boudreau needs to keep Ovi on a shorter leash. The Capitals have made it clear that it's Stanley Cup or bust for them this year -- shorter shifts from their stars are the type of personal commitment players have to make for their team to win.
Less is more.
In the biggest moments of playoffs, you want your best players to have their best in the tank. Time flies, just like some players — the only difference is, coaches have the power to make one of them stop once in awhile.
If they hope to win the Cup, they'll need to exercise that right more than usual.