The Penalty Kill Thread

[McDNicks17]

Had a few thoughts. Didn't know where to put them. Figured we could use a thread on this since it's such an issue.


I was bored, so I decided to look at the individual numbers for the PK at home and found some odd stuff.

RNH appears to be the goat on the home PK with by far the highest goals against per 60 minutes(24.42) of the forwards. The weird thing is he averages the lowest high danger chances against and by far the lowest medium danger chances against.

As you keep going, you seem to find the problem at low danger chances against. RNH averages by far the most on the team(almost double the rate of Letestu or Kassian) and that's likely why RNH has 2.5 times as many low danger goals against as the other top 4 PK forwards(Letestu, Kassian, McDavid, Khaira) combined.

Does the RNH/X/Nurse/Russell unit have a tendency to give up really good looks from long distance? Is it bad luck? I've got nothing.

Click to read more...

 

[Cloned]

Subpar goaltending really neutralizes the effectiveness of the 1-1-2 because when the goalie lets in the longer range shots that the PK scheme is supposed to allow, and you combine that with the high danger chances the system is also allowing because of poor personnel, that's when you get a 50% PK.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Subpar goaltending really neutralizes the effectiveness of the 1-1-2 because when the goalie lets in the longer range shots that the PK scheme is supposed to allow, and you combine that with the high danger chances the system is also allowing because of poor personnel, that's when you get a 50% PK.

Yep.
One of the issues with that RNH unit is Nurse doesn't seem to clear the net very well on it and lots of pucks end up going off of bodies from range. Our teams defensive play is to allow low quality shots so that they have a chance to clear after Talbot saves. So with the inability to clear bodies out of the front of the net, and the inability for Talbot to make clean saves on those shots.....its a disaster.

The other unit just just allows some of the closest in shots to the net that are hard to stop.

Also the other unit doesn't allow a lot of low danger goals because they are allowing more high danger ones.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Also look at how many high danger chances Letestu gives up 41 per 60. Second closest is f***ing 26.

 

[Cloned]

Yep.
One of the issues with that RNH unit is Nurse doesn't seem to clear the net very well on it and lots of pucks end up going off of bodies from range. Our teams defensive play is to allow low quality shots so that they have a chance to clear after Talbot saves. So with the inability to clear bodies out of the front of the net, and the inability for Talbot to make clean saves on those shots.....its a disaster.

The other unit just just allows some of the closest in shots to the net that are hard to stop.

Also the other unit doesn't allow a lot of low danger goals because they are allowing more high danger ones.

Nurse is good along the boards but his net front work does leave a lot to be desired.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Nurse is good along the boards but his net front work does leave a lot to be desired.

I mean, he doesn't have like 1 goal a game going off of him and in every game anymore so he has fixed it a bit.

 

[Cloned]

I mean, he doesn't have like 1 goal a game going off of him and in every game anymore so he has fixed it a bit.

Baby steps!

 

[Fourier]

Had a few thoughts. Didn't know where to put them. Figured we could use a thread on this since it's such an issue.


I was bored, so I decided to look at the individual numbers for the PK at home and found some odd stuff.

RNH appears to be the goat on the home PK with by far the highest goals against per 60 minutes(24.42) of the forwards. The weird thing is he averages the lowest high danger chances against and by far the lowest medium danger chances against.

As you keep going, you seem to find the problem at low danger chances against. RNH averages by far the most on the team(almost double the rate of Letestu or Kassian) and that's likely why RNH has 2.5 times as many low danger goals against as the other top 4 PK forwards(Letestu, Kassian, McDavid, Khaira) combined.

Does the RNH/X/Nurse/Russell unit have a tendency to give up really good looks from long distance? Is it bad luck? I've got nothing.

This is an interesting find. His on ice save percentage is very low at 75.8%. With Brossoit in net it is 62.5%. That's kind of a ridiculous number. You would expect that you should only see this if the goalie is being completely hung out to dry from in close.

Part of this might be the Nuge/Russell combination. They don't work well together. And I am not claiming this is all on Russell. Last year the difference in Nuge's numbers with or without Russell was incredible. In contrast with Larsson his numbers were excellent. On the pk this seems to again be the case. For example if you look at CA/60 with Russell it is 139.4. In roughly the same TOI with Larsson it is 92.77. With Nurse it is 116.91 and with Klefbom it is 70.8. The others are small sample sizes

SCA/60 with Russell= 79.08. With Larsson 48.4, Klefbom 39.3 and Nurse 53.3.

His GA/60 with Russell is higher as well but not by as much as I expected at 16.65. With Larsson it is 14.12. Klefbom 13.12 and Nurse 12.03. And perhaps not surprisingly it is about 33% higher with Brossoit in net vs Talbot.

I think Nuge works best with a physical defenseman who can win battles down low and who can move the puck. He and Larsson seem to complement one another very well.

 

[Fourier]

The home pk is beyond insanely bad. I looked at all of the home pk%-ages going back to 1977-78 which is as far back as I could find. The second worst was the 77-78 Caps a team that won 17 games all year at 66.7%. Only 6 teams in all that time were under 70% with the Oilers at a very brutal 55.5%. There is a good part of the season in a nutshell.

 

[Cloned]

So why is it so good on the road and so bad at home?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

So why is it so good on the road and so bad at home?

They seem to have more aggressiveness on the road. They didn't let the Knights have too many prime chances tonight.

 

[Soundwave]

I actually don't even get mad anymore when the refs give the other teams way more PPs.

This PK needs to figure it out or embarrass themselves, make them play that PK over and over again. They're probably not making the playoffs anyway, they might as well figure this out.

 

[redgrant]

So why is it so good on the road and so bad at home?

Players probably stressing over family crap they got to go home and deal with after the game.

Clearly more relaxed on the road.

 

[Ritchie Valens]

So why is it so good on the road and so bad at home?

At this point, it's got to be more of a mental thing. At home, they go on the PK and the whole team is thinking "Don't screw this up...don't screw this up. @!%$...we screwed it up." On the road: "Ain't no thing, we got this."

So bizarre.

 

[McDNicks17]

I wondered if it was because of last change causing McDavid(by far the team's best PKer) to play a little less at even strength and being used more on the PK on the road, but the last time I looked, he only plays about 10% more of PK time on the road, so not really conclusive.

 

[nabob]

Had a few thoughts. Didn't know where to put them. Figured we could use a thread on this since it's such an issue.


I was bored, so I decided to look at the individual numbers for the PK at home and found some odd stuff.

RNH appears to be the goat on the home PK with by far the highest goals against per 60 minutes(24.42) of the forwards. The weird thing is he averages the lowest high danger chances against and by far the lowest medium danger chances against.

As you keep going, you seem to find the problem at low danger chances against. RNH averages by far the most on the team(almost double the rate of Letestu or Kassian) and that's likely why RNH has 2.5 times as many low danger goals against as the other top 4 PK forwards(Letestu, Kassian, McDavid, Khaira) combined.

Does the RNH/X/Nurse/Russell unit have a tendency to give up really good looks from long distance? Is it bad luck? I've got nothing.

Does low danger goal = a bad goal or a bad bounce or a combination of the two?

 

[nabob]

They seem to have more aggressiveness on the road. They didn't let the Knights have too many prime chances tonight.

I think it might be that teams play a bit simpler style on the road, aka "a good road game". Throw the puck at the net hope for a bounce or a crash the net harder. Simple hockey.

We haven't given up a ton of shots this year, way less than last year, and the numbers look like they aren't a higher than normal amount of high quality scoring chances either. Saying it's bad luck only goes so far too.

 

[Cloned]

At this point, it's got to be more of a mental thing. At home, they go on the PK and the whole team is thinking "Don't screw this up...don't screw this up. @!%$...we screwed it up." On the road: "Ain't no thing, we got this."

So bizarre.

I could see this as the reason if the home PK was bad and the road PK was middling. The road PK is spectacular though. Boggles the mind.

 

[Ritchie Valens]

I could see this as the reason if the home PK was bad and the road PK was middling. The road PK is spectacular though. Boggles the mind.

Maybe they should apply to the league to wear road whites at home games. The fans are starting to boo them enough to give it a road game experience anyways-haha.

 

[slim2001]

Was bored so threw together a 4 vs 5 GA differential per 60 excel sheet (threw in some former Oilers for comparison):

	Overall			2017-18			2016/17
	GA /60	Min	GA Diff.	GA / 60	Min	GA Diff.	GA / 60	Min	GA Diff.
Andrej Sekera	4.31	195	14	2.67	45	2	4.80	150	12
Eric Gryba	5.19	81	7	2.00	30	1	7.06	51	6
Brandon Davidson	6.15	78	8	5.11	47	4	7.74	31	4
Oscar Klefbom	6.18	272	28	6.99	146	17	5.24	126	11
Adam Larsson	6.57	265	29	6.08	148	15	7.18	117	14
Kris Russell	6.80	300	34	8.96	154	23	4.52	146	11
Darnell Nurse	7.04	230	27	6.67	180	20	8.40	50	7
Matthew Benning	7.32	82	10	10.77	39	7	4.19	43	3
Kevin Gravel	18.62	29	9	40.00	3	2	16.15	26	7
Jujhar Khaira	2.91	103	5	2.94	102	5	0.00	1	0
Connor McDavid	4.11	146	10	3.53	85	5	4.92	61	5
Ryan Strome	4.84	62	5	4.92	61	5	0.00	1	0
Scottie Upshall	5.40	211	19	8.47	85	12	3.33	126	7
Benoit Pouliot	6.12	206	21	6.67	117	13	5.39	89	8
Kyle Brodziak	6.22	270	28	7.39	138	17	5.00	132	11
Leon Draisaitl	6.55	110	12	6.23	77	8	7.27	33	4
Tobias Rieder	6.57	274	30	7.42	89	11	6.16	185	19
Drake Caggiula	6.59	91	10	12.00	50	10	0.00	41	0
Mark Letestu	6.89	270	31	7.89	114	15	6.15	156	16
Matt Hendricks	6.96	181	21	6.61	118	13	7.62	63	8
Zack Kassian	7.08	195	23	7.16	109	13	6.98	86	10
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	8.28	232	32	10.30	99	17	6.77	133	15

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Was surprised by some of the results. Sekera was exceptionally good on the PK with Russell, I think that is where his injury will hurt the most. I would feel a lot more comparable with penalty kill specialist defenseman (even Davidson, Gryba was not NHL quality 5 vs 5) signed and competing for the 6th defenseman role with Gravel. Kassian and Nugent-Hopkins were overused on the PK and had sub-par results. Khaira and Strome had good results last year on the PK and I liked their chemistry together as line-mates. Hoping Upshall still has some gas left in the tank and earns a contract this fall, perfect complimentary player for Brodziak on the 4th line. IMO next year the forward PK pairings should be:

Strome - Khaira
Brodziak - Upshall
Draisaitl - Rieder
McDavid - Nugent-Hopkins

I would run those combo's together 5 vs 5 as well. No PK time for Kassian, keep him fresh fresh for 5 vs 5, conceivably helping him be more effective next year. PK was one of the major factors that sunk the Oilers last year, I like this forward group better than last years in regards to being able to kill off penalties but I'm concerned about the defensemen after Sekera's injury as he was vital to the PK success in 2016-17.