Limiting penalties has had ripple effect
When the injuries began to pile up for the Penguins in the first weeks of the season, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan preached that his team would need to play a “simplified game.”
It’s not terribly difficult to know a simplified game when you see one. But how do you quantify it?
At least one way to measure discipline is to look at how often a team is penalized and forced to kill penalties. In this department, the Penguins are one of the NHL’s best.
The Penguins entered a game Saturday night against the Vegas Golden Knights tied for the fifthleast penalized team in the league. They were shorthanded just 18 times in the young season and were able to kill all but three opposing opportunities.
Adjusting to account for the fact that the Penguins have played more games than many other teams, the numbers look even better. The Penguins have been short-handed just 2.25 times per game. That ranks second in the league, behind only Winnipeg (1.78).
“That’s been awesome,” Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin said. “It shows that we’re not taking those little stick infractions. We’re backchecking with our legs. … Instead of killing five or six of them, we can kill two or three of them.”
It’s only logical that when a team stays out of the penalty box, it has more scoring chances and limits opponents’ changes. That’s not exactly rocket-science stuff.
But what might not be so obvious on first glance is just how important a statistic like this can be. In recent years, power-play units have become increasingly efficient. The median NHL team scores one more goal per hour on the power play than it did a decade ago.
In 2007-08, teams scored 4.95 goals per hour on the power play. By 2017-18, they were scoring 6.04 goals per hour.
“When you march into the penalty box, you’re giving the opposing team’s power play the opportunity to be the difference in the game,” Sullivan said. “If we can exercise discipline like we have and not give our opponents too many opportunities for their power play to be the difference, it’s going to increase our chances to win.”
Power players
The penalty kill is just one-half of the special teams game. It would be
remiss to leave out the Penguins power play, which similarly ranks among the league’s best in terms of sheer number of opportunities.
Entering Saturday, the Penguins have been on the power play 28 times, tied for fifth-most in the NHL.
Brandon Tanev, in particular, has shown his value in the penalty-drawing area. He entered Saturday as the league leader, forcing opponents to go to the box on nine occasions.
The Penguins still are working to take advantage of all those chances. They currently rank in the middle of the league, scoring on 21.4% of their opportunities with the man-advantage. With Phil Kessel, a power-play mainstay for years, gone, there’s going to be a natural feeling-out process. Then, the fact that power play contributors such as Evgeni Malkin and Alex Galchenyuk are out is another factor.
But as long as the stats continue, the chances will keep coming.
McCann, Dumoulin out
When the Penguins took the ice at PPG Paints Arena, there were two surprise scratches. Forward Jared McCann and defenseman Brian Dumoulin were not in the lineup.
McCann has been in and out of the Penguins lineup this week. He missed a game Wednesday with a nagging lower-body injury, but returned Friday night to help beat the Dallas Stars.
Saturday, he was out again.
The forward has been dealing with a nagging lower-body injury. It was unclear at puck drop if a reaggravation of the same injury or a new one forced him to sit. In his place, Hollidaysburg, Pa., native Sam Lafferty stepped up to play the second-line center.
Because the Penguins are carrying nine defensemen and just 12 forwards, they were forced to get creative again to fill the void. Defenseman Juuso Riikola had to play wing for the second time this week.
Meanwhile, Dumoulin was on the ice for warmups but at the last minute was removed from the lineup.