More Advanced PP Comparisons

[SlickM32]

I made an earlier thread comparing average rank of each team since 2005-06 which was met with some criticism as rankings could be very tightly packed or spread out, so the ranking overall means little in the grand scheme of things. I redid my numbers based on PP opportunities, PP opportunities versus the average, and percent difference from the average. I did not use things such as standard deviations, medians, etc. which you can if you want (I attached the excel I made).

The raw numbers again have less justification than %'s because even if you are say 10 PP below the average, if the average is 500 PP, then 10 is a minor difference, whereas if the average is a 100 PP, well the 10 is a major difference.

Since this is an 8 season spread, there has been a lot of roster turnover, so it is a large enough sample size to expect the average % difference from the PP average to be around 0%, but since 8 seasons leaves enough error, I am willing to say +/- 3% to be fair. The raw number is harder to judge.

Here is % above average (Example: Carolina, over the past 8 seasons, has on average had 12% more powerplays than the league average)

CAR 12%
PIT 8%
LAK 6%
DET 5%
VAN 5%
MTL 4%
SJS 3%
PHI 3%
DAL 3%
CBJ 2%
TOR 2%
PHX 1%
BUF 1%
TBL 1%
EDM 0%
NYR 0%
CGY 0%
WPG -1%
STL -1%
WSH -1%
OTT -3%
CHI -3%
ANA -3%
MIN -3%
NSH -4%
NYI -5%
NJD -7%
COL -7%
FLA -8%
BOS -10%

Here is the raw number difference from the average. (Example: Over the past 8 seasons, Carolina has on average had 39 more powerplays than the league average). As you can see, the rankings shift slightly, but similar overall.

CAR 39
PIT 25
LAK 21
VAN 17
DET 12
SJS 11
DAL 10
TOR 7
CBJ 7
PHX 6
MTL 6
PHI 5
BUF 3
WPG 2
EDM 0
TBL 0
CGY -1
NYR -1
STL -2
WSH -4
NSH -7
ANA -7
OTT -8
MIN -11
CHI -11
NYI -18
COL -20
NJD -26
FLA -28
BOS -29

Again, you could go more in depth, but this is just a snapshot. This doesn't take into account how many times a team went on a PK, and that really has little to do with amount of penalties drawn. It does not make sense, over a long period of time (sans some small variations, which I said +/- 3%) for a team to somehow draw many more penalties. Even a team has more star power, it should not cause a drastically higher amount of PP's. Maybe 1-2%, and even that is a stretch.

People will say NJ or Bos is a defensive team, so they don't draw many PP, but Min was trap city for a good portion of this timeframe and they are only -3% below average. BOS was a top scoring team one of these years and still managed to be in the bottom frame. So point is, I'm not sure the defensive argument necessarily holds true.

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[deckercky]

This doesn't take into account how many times a team went on a PK, and that really has little to do with amount of penalties drawn.

Of course it does. Do you even watch hockey, with the officiating culture of 'make up calls'? Looking at Vancouver for example - #4 in penalties drawn as a basic number, but they actually receive less penalties in their favour than their opponents do. For whatever reason, Vancouver games just have more active referees, and this doesn't appear to play to Vancouver's advantage.

 

[SlickM32]

Of course it does. Do you even watch hockey, with the officiating culture of 'make up calls'? Looking at Vancouver for example - #4 in penalties drawn as a basic number, but they actually receive less penalties in their favour than their opponents do. For whatever reason, Vancouver games just have more active referees, and this doesn't appear to play to Vancouver's advantage.

Do the PK stats then. You could counter that and say well a team like Pittsburgh or Chicago would love to trade PK's for PP's since they have an awesome Powerplay and thus even if they have to take 5 PK to get 4 PP, they'd do it. That's not really the point of this thread. It's just one angle on this topic.

I don't see what Carolina, LA, or Pittsburgh do to gain such a high discrepancy in calls over the past 8 years.

 

[Talks to Goalposts]

I made an earlier thread comparing average rank of each team since 2005-06 which was met with some criticism as rankings could be very tightly packed or spread out, so the ranking overall means little in the grand scheme of things. I redid my numbers based on PP opportunities, PP opportunities versus the average, and percent difference from the average. I did not use things such as standard deviations, medians, etc. which you can if you want (I attached the excel I made).

The raw numbers again have less justification than %'s because even if you are say 10 PP below the average, if the average is 500 PP, then 10 is a minor difference, whereas if the average is a 100 PP, well the 10 is a major difference.

Since this is an 8 season spread, there has been a lot of roster turnover, so it is a large enough sample size to expect the average % difference from the PP average to be around 0%, but since 8 seasons leaves enough error, I am willing to say +/- 3% to be fair. The raw number is harder to judge.

Here is % above average (Example: Carolina, over the past 8 seasons, has on average had 12% more powerplays than the league average)

CAR 12%
PIT 8%
LAK 6%
DET 5%
VAN 5%
MTL 4%
SJS 3%
PHI 3%
DAL 3%
CBJ 2%
TOR 2%
PHX 1%
BUF 1%
TBL 1%
EDM 0%
NYR 0%
CGY 0%
WPG -1%
STL -1%
WSH -1%
OTT -3%
CHI -3%
ANA -3%
MIN -3%
NSH -4%
NYI -5%
NJD -7%
COL -7%
FLA -8%
BOS -10%

Here is the raw number difference from the average. (Example: Over the past 8 seasons, Carolina has on average had 39 more powerplays than the league average). As you can see, the rankings shift slightly, but similar overall.

CAR 39
PIT 25
LAK 21
VAN 17
DET 12
SJS 11
DAL 10
TOR 7
CBJ 7
PHX 6
MTL 6
PHI 5
BUF 3
WPG 2
EDM 0
TBL 0
CGY -1
NYR -1
STL -2
WSH -4
NSH -7
ANA -7
OTT -8
MIN -11
CHI -11
NYI -18
COL -20
NJD -26
FLA -28
BOS -29

Again, you could go more in depth, but this is just a snapshot. This doesn't take into account how many times a team went on a PK, and that really has little to do with amount of penalties drawn. It does not make sense, over a long period of time (sans some small variations, which I said +/- 3%) for a team to somehow draw many more penalties. Even a team has more star power, it should not cause a drastically higher amount of PP's. Maybe 1-2%, and even that is a stretch.

People will say NJ or Bos is a defensive team, so they don't draw many PP, but Min was trap city for a good portion of this timeframe and they are only -3% below average. BOS was a top scoring team one of these years and still managed to be in the bottom frame. So point is, I'm not sure the defensive argument necessarily holds true.

There is a good reason to consider amount of penalties taken. Penalty drawing isn't random, over a decent sample size there is a "skill" component too it in that certain players are better at getting the opposition to commit fractions against them. This doesn't exactly line up with player talent because the undisputed king of penalty drawing is Brown in LA, a not particularly remarkable scoring line winger other wise.

The thing is, that players good a drawing penalties tend to take quite a few of their own. The converse isn't true though, a lot of the worst offenders are terrible at drawing infractions.

Its also interesting to note how big an advantage you've shown. On average you get a goal on 17-18% of powerplays in the NHL or about 1 inry 6. Also the average amount of goal differential increase to get one more win in a season is 6 goals. So even a team like Carolina doesn't appear to get more than a single win's advantage compared to league average from increased power play time. Nobody is getting a huge advantage or disadvantage overall due to penalties drawn year after year.

If you're wondering why the top teams are the way they are, you might look at who are drawing the penalties. Skinner, Cole, Ruutu and E. Staal are consistently great at getting calls. LA has Brown who is the best in the league at penalty draws and Crosby, Cooke and Malkin are both very good at drawing penalties for Pittsburgh.