Calgary was actually a decent ES team last year. They scored the 12th most goals 5on5 (145) and were in the top 10 in terms of GA (135). Problem was, they gave it all back thanks to their dreadful special teams (STGD was -13). Not only were both the PP and PK below average in terms of efficiency, but the Flames also took more penalties than they drew (-37).
I looked at the penalty differential because in discussing some of the players this off season the issue of taken/drawn ratios has been breached a couple times. It occured to me that penalty differential might be a potential driver of results for the special teams goal differential. It makes intuitive sense: spending more time on the PP and less on the PK should mean more goals for, less goals against. The possibility of scoring climbs with the man advantage, while the chances of getting scored on plummet. The opposite is true of the penalty kill. So perhaps a healthy differential could actually make up for mediocre efficacy rates? Maybe the Flames could merely concentrate on, say, not taking as many penalties (they were the 2nd most penalized team in the league last year) rather than hope they can significantly ratchet up a 20th ranked PK?
I began my inquiry by looking at last year's ST results:
Included are raw numbers (including times shorthanded and power-play opportunites), PP and PK rates, as well as penalty differential, ST goal differential and a combined score for each club's special teams (PP+PK). At the bottom, I correlated ST GD with combined ST score and then again with penalty differential.
As you can see, the PK+PP score had the strongest correlation with GD (0.89). However, PEN DIFF was also significantly correlated with GD last season (0.64). This perhaps suggests that a higher positive penalty differential can lead to a higher ST goal differential, although this suggests doing things well with a man up or down is still the best way to drive results.
For a more robust investigation, I decided to compile all the ST data from the last five seasons (2002/2003-present) to maybe smooth out some wrinkles:
Both correlations dropped, although the Penalty differential suffered the bigger decline. PP+PK remained above .80 (0.83), while penalty differential, though still statistically significant, dropped down to 0.51.
Findings:
- There's no substitute for being good. The Detroit Red Wings had a negative penalty differential over 5 seasons, taking 37 more penalties than they drew, but still ended up in the black by 106 goals. The reason? Their league best combined special team score of 105.9. Conversely, really bad ST teams couldn't overcome their crappiness through discipline alone: the NY Rangers had 354 more PPs than PKs since 2002 and a GD of -30...all due to their pitiful ST score of 94. Both teams were around 6 ticks away from the league mean of 100 (99.9) in either direction.
- Penalty differential probably exerts something of a moderating effect on GD outside of the extremely good and extremely bad ST clubs. In addition, it obviously exacerbates gains at the good end and losses at the bad end.
- Flames were -37 in terms of penalties for/against in 07/08, -13 in terms of GD and were below average in terms of ST score (98.3). Nothing good there. The team should at least try to get up to the mean on the latter measure (100) as well as shoot for a minimum penalty differential of 0 if they want contribute to (rather than deflate) their overall GD.
- Over the five year period, the Flames were -61, -31 and 99 in PEN DIFF, GD and ST score respectively. No wonder special teams seem like a perennial sore spot.
Im not sure what drives PEN DIFF, be it team make-up, coaching, difficulty of schedule or some combination of therein, but the 3 best clubs by this measure over the long-term were CAR (+278), San Jose (+280) and TBL (+284). The three worst were BOS (-245), CHI (-322) and FLA (-343). The first three had positive GDs, while the latter three were negative.
Implications for the Flames -
PEN DIFF:
The worst Flames in terms of taken/drawn differential, according to behindthenet: (Player, Taken/60/Drawn/60)
Cory Sarich, 1.8/0.3
Wayne Primeau, 1.8/0.5
Matthew Lombardi, 1.6/0.8
Craig Conroy, 1.6/0.9
David Hale, 1.3/0.4
Owen Nolan, 1.3/0.7
Rhett Warrener, 1.2/0.5
Robyn Regehr, 1.0/0.4
Guys like Regehr and Sarich are always going to take more than they draw because they spend a lot of time against big guns, ie: guys who draw a lot of penalties. So there likely won't be much improvement there, although Sarich's appalling ratio suggests he may be in over his head a tad.
Craig Conroy took a lot of stick-related penalties last year and like Regehr and Sarich that probably had to do with his quality of competition. Primeau, Hale and Warrener, on the other hand, are just guys that can't keep up to anyone. Hale's gone, so here's hoping Warrener and Primeau stay off the ice as much as possible.
Matthew Lombardi is a head scratcher, although his 64 PIM were a career high. Better surroundings may just mean a return back to normal for him.
Now, some of the additions:
Bertuzzi, 1:3/1:4
Cammalleri, 0.6/1.0
Bourque, 1.2/1.3
Glencross, 1.1/1.5
Surprise of the day: Bertuzzi, known league-wide for taken dumb penalties, was actually in the black in terms of penalty differential last year. In fact, all the new Flames were, which is encouraging. The combination of losing guys like Warrener, Hale and Nolan while adding 4 new "penalty drawers" suggests the Flames could close the gap on that -37 PEN DIFF from last season.
ST score
Calgary's PP will enjoy an infusion of new players on both units (Giordano, Cammalleri, Bertuzzi, Boyd?, Lombardi) as well as the expulsion of some old ones, both good (Huselius) and bad (Nolan, Conroy, Tanguay, Eriksson). Also, the Flames home PP rate of 14.6% was the 2nd worst in the league and almost a full 5% below their road rate of 19.5%. What's more bizarre is they enjoyed far more PPs at home than on the road and most teams enjoyed a bump in PP efficacy on home ice. In fact, just by eye-balling the list, it looks the Flames had the biggest difference between their road and home PP percentage in the NHL.
That doesn't make a lick of sense to me and I would expect the home performance to jump up a bit next season just because it should.
The PK was discussed at length here and a bit here. Like the PP above, the personnel changes are potentially beneficial, although a significant improvement likely rests on Kippers shoulders.
Overall
Penalty Differential apparently contributes to goal differential, although it's effects can be overridden by a good or bad combined special team score. The Flames have historically been poor in almost all special teams areas, but seemed poised to make gains in both penalty differential, ST score and therefore, ST goal differential. If true, the improvement may help assuage the potential step back in ES play, as long as it's not too sizable a decline. Naturally, ES play trumps all.
