On average, how much time per game does the 1st/2nd/3rd/4th line play?

[FedorBure]

Just curious. I know every team is different and this likely varies by league. I guess I am wondering about average NHL team.

Is it something like

1st line 35% of the game
2nd line 30%
3rd line 20%
4th line 15%

to further complicate things, I know that ice time for special teams distorts total ice time. However, I am curious about how much each line would play if special teams were not involved.

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[talkinaway]

Just as an informal sample that's totally inaccurate and not representative, the Bruins' centers are as follows:

1st line, David Krejci, ATOI 19:07
2nd line, Patrice Bergeron, ATOI 17:59
3rd line, Carl Soderberg, ATOI 14:16 (Chris Kelly, ATOI 14:42)
4th line, Greg Campbell, ATOI 11:54

That includes all ice time, including PK and PP. I included both Kelly and Soderberg because they both spent time as a center, but the times are pretty close. I'll use Soderberg from here on out.

The total of the average time on ice is 63:26. That's no doubt because we often have two centers on the ice for the PP. By percentages, it's 30.1-28.4-22.2-18.8

The most atypical feature is probably that there's not much difference between the first and second lines. The Bruins are unique in that we "roll four lines", and actually when they show the lines on NESN, Bergeron is shown as our "first line" for some odd reason. I probably shouldn't have picked centers - I probably should have picked players who don't get much time on special teams. But that's just one team study. As for a whole NHL average, that would be interesting.

 

[Tawnos]

In a totally unscientific, probably very flawed, inconsistent study of center ES ice time, I came up with this for last season:

15:36 29%
14:20 27%
13:01 24%
10:25 19%

Like I said... very unscientific and probably not very accurate. Definitely jives with my sense of the flattening of top9 ice-time around the league.

 

[Plural]

In a totally unscientific, probably very flawed, inconsistent study of center ES ice time, I came up with this for last season:

15:36 29%
14:20 27%
13:01 24%
10:25 19%

Like I said... very unscientific and probably not very accurate. Definitely jives with my sense of the flattening of top9 ice-time around the league.

Surprisingly small differences. So, it's the PP/PK time that racks up the 1st and 2nd line ice-time?

 

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

Surprisingly small differences. So, it's the PP/PK time that racks up the 1st and 2nd line ice-time?

Looks like it.

 

[Tawnos]

Surprisingly small differences. So, it's the PP/PK time that racks up the 1st and 2nd line ice-time?

Seems that way. Some of the numbers were what you'd expect. Crosby played the most ES for any center... 17:10 per game. Tavares just a hair under 17 minutes. Some others were more surprising. Stamkos and Getlzaf under 16 minutes.

Most surprising was Bozak playing 17:03.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

Seems that way. Some of the numbers were what you'd expect. Crosby played the most ES for any center... 17:10 per game. Tavares just a hair under 17 minutes. Some others were more surprising. Stamkos and Getlzaf under 16 minutes.

Most surprising was Bozak playing 17:03.

Yeah, it's interesting to cross-reference that stuff with the special teams.

Like Getzlaf sees about a minute more of special teams ice-time compared to Crosby, but that's because he plays so much on the PK.

Or how Pittsburgh uses Crosby vs. Malkin when it comes special teams.

 

[Kennel]

I wonder if 1st/2nd lines get notably bigger share of ES minutes when there isn't many penalties.

For example if there's a penalty every ~3 minutes, some top liners might not be on ice during ES at all. Obviously it's rarely that extreme but I imagine there's a notable difference between periods with no penalties and periods with lots of them.