The Flyers’ power play is last in the NHL again. Here are three suggestions for how they can fix it.

Taylor Swift thought she could fix Matt Healy. Rick Tocchet thought he could fix the Flyers’ power play.

Neither was right.

Sitting on a dais on the floor of what was then called the Wells Fargo Center in May at his introductory press conference, Tocchet said he knew the power play was “a sore point” and that he had “some thoughts on it.”

Whatever those thoughts were, they have not worked. The power play isn’t just a sore point; it’s becoming an open wound.

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It’s been five seasons and five coaches — Alain Vigneault, Mike Yeo, John Tortorella, Brad Shaw, and Tocchet — since the Flyers’ power play has earned any level of respectability in the NHL. In 2020-21, it finished the season at 19.2% and tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the NHL’s 17th best.

Entering Monday, it’s hello old friend, (it’s not) nice to see you once again. The Flyers’ power play (15.2%) is back in the NHL’s basement, the same place it ended every season between 2021-24; last season, it finished a mere 30th of 32 teams.

Tocchet came in with a reputation for running top power plays as an assistant in Pittsburgh and Colorado. He brought in assistant coaches Jaroslav “Yogi” Svejkovský and Jay Varady to help run the unit. It hasn’t helped.

Here are three suggested changes the Flyers could make to try to help ignite things.

This seems like a no-brainer.

Tocchet doesn’t want to play Andrae on the penalty kill because he’s small and struggles at times defensively. Fine. But the 24-year-old Swedish blueliner’s puck-moving ability was built for the man advantage.

According to Natural Stat Trick, this season he has spent just 22 minutes, 43 seconds on the power play, but when he’s on the ice, the Flyers have 92.68% of the shot attempts (38-3), are outshooting opponents 18-2, have 18 scoring chances to none against, and eight high-danger chances. His Corsi For percentage and expected Goals For percentage (98.52%) are the best among the Flyers who have played at least nine minutes with the man advantage. And he’s been on the ice for a power-play goal by Trevor Zegras, for which he got the primary assist.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. Last season, Andrae played a little more than 55 minutes on the power play in his 42 games. He was on the ice for four goals and none against, and collected three of his seven points. How many other players scored 100% of the goals on the power play? Three, and the other two were Olle Lycksell and Andrei Kuzmenko. His expected goal share ranked 10th, but everyone above him, except Travis Sanheim, played more power-play minutes.

To further prove the point, Andrae has 10 goals for Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League in the regular season and another two in the playoffs. Seven have come on the power play.

Tocchet spoke with The Inquirer after he was hired and had this to say about the power play:

“The worst thing I’ve known, from my experience over the years, is giving the players too many plays. If you look for plays all the time, you lose what I call road hockey. We just beat three guys out of the corner, so why would you be thinking about a play?

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“To me, it’s an attack style. Now you’ve got to have creativity. You’ve got a guy like [Matvei] Michkov, who’s obviously a very high-level offensive guy, and getting him the puck when you beat pressure.

“You figure a lot of times, hopefully, he’s going to make a lot of good plays out of that pressure. But when things get stagnant, it’s because players look for plays.”

But on Saturday, after another 0-for-4 effort in a 2-1 shootout loss to Columbus, which followed a goose egg in four opportunities against Minnesota, including four of the final six minutes of a shootout win, Tocchet spoke about reading plays and how the Flyers were on the wrong side of the setup.

Philly is officially stagnant and, by Tocchet’s reasoning, it’s because they’re looking too much for plays. Time to just let them play.

Why? The Flyers have a couple of the game’s most talented offensive players in Zegras and Michkov, and as Flyers general manager Danny Brière said on March 7, the optics look better overall. Yes, they are controlling the puck in the zone and sustaining pressure, but they still aren’t getting shots as they continuously pass around the perimeter. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers rank 12th in shot attempts (559) but 23rd in shots on goal and 20th in high-danger chances this season.

Since Feb. 5, the Flyers have scored just three power-play goals across 31 opportunities — 29th in the NHL (not last!). Again, they rank high in shot attempts (82 and 14th) but only 36 have been on goal, meaning less than 50% of their attempts are getting through. But all three goals are from high-danger areas, coming on 20 shot attempts from prime spots.

It’s time to get drastic. Every team has two units but it feels like right now, the Flyers need to load up and try to establish a No. 1 power play.

Right now, the units are as follows:

PP1: Travis Konecny, Christian Dvorak, Owen Tippett, Jamie Drysdale, and Zegras

PP2: Michkov, Denver Barkey, Noah Cates, Alex Bump, Rasmus Ristolainen or Cam York

What if PP1 looked like:

Bump in the left flank, Zegras on the right flank, Konecny in the bumper, Michkov at the net-front (or the right post where he likes to hang out), and Drysdale or York at the point.

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Konecny and Bump have each expressed desires to play in the bumper position, and, like all good power plays, they can rotate around with Konecny being a right-shot and Bump a lefty. Zegras has thrived in that right circle spot, Michkov’s hands are just too good around the net, and Drysdale has started to show pop from the point.

That would leave PP2 to be some variation of:

Tippett left flank, Dvorak net-front, Barkey right flank, Cates bumper, and either York, Drysdale, or Andrae at the point.

At this point, what is there to lose ...