"There are a lot of good players on both units," said Perfetti. "There is a lot of really solid, talented, and smart hockey players. They know when to shoot and pass. It's all situational. Sometimes you might over pass, sometimes you might overshoot. It's all about finding that happy balance. We want to get pucks to the net to score, but we're also trying to make the right play, the right read, and get it to the net at the right time."
As part of the changes, Perfetti - who has one power play goal and five power play points this season - will move to the bumper position on his unit.
"I'm learning it and I've never done this before. So I'm trying to learn how to be successful at it and watch some of the top players in the league that do it," said Perfetti. "The bumper is a really important position. If you have a good bumper guy, it can make a really good power play. I'll do whatever I can to support the rest of the guys - give them outs, give them opportunities to use me as support - and hopefully we create something there."
The other benefit of configuring the power play units the way the Jets have is the fact they're quite similar to how the forward lines are put together.
"Sometimes we're getting penalties and what we're finding is the guys we want on the power play are on the ice," said Bowness. "So we wanted to have the option that if Dubie's line is out there and they draw the penalty, then you go with Mark's unit. If Mark's line is out there and they draw the penalty, then you go with Dubie's unit. Then it's going to be up to them who is going back out."
The full line rushes looked like this:
Connor-Dubois-Maenalanen
Perfetti-Scheifele-Appleton
Ehlers-Lowry-Wheeler
Barron-Stenlund-Kuhlman
Gagner, Gustafsson (non-contact)
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Schmidt-Samberg
Stanley-Capobianco
The concept is something similar to what Bowness used when the Jets snapped a three-game losing streak against St. Louis.
"We have to start scoring some greasy goals. That's why we ended up putting Nik and Wheels with Lows," said Bowness. "We need more goals from that third line, it's as simple as that. It can't always be the top two lines - Scheif's line and Dubie's line - scoring goals. We need goals from that third and fourth line. With three games in four nights, we want to be able to roll four lines, this gives us four balanced lines."
That stretch of three games in four nights begins Sunday against the New Jersey Devils, who play Saturday night in Pittsburgh as well.
Heading into Saturday night, New Jersey is 3-1-1 in their last five and sit second in the Metropolitan Division.
They can also score goals. Their 185 goals this season are the 10th most in the league.
"They have a lot of speed and a lot of high-end skill," said Bowness. "They're dangerous on the rush. It's going to be up to us to spend as much time in their zone as we can and make sure when they get it, we're above and we're not giving them the odd-man rushes they like to get."
