Live by the Power Play, Die by the Power Play
by J.P. on Oct 8, 2009 2:30 PM EDT
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"You take [nine minor penalties] in a game, you're not going to win that game." - Bruce Boudreau, after Tuesday night's loss to the Flyers
Ah, lack of discipline. The Caps' Achilles heel from a year ago made its 2009-10 season debut on Tuesday night and the result was the team's first loss of the campaign. Boudreau's right: take nine minors and you're going to lose the game, as the Caps have all three times they've been whistled as frequently in a game during his tenure behind an NHL bench.
Discipline is critical to winning in the NHL - especially so for recent Caps teams that have struggled to kill penalties. How important? Take a look at the numbers since Boudreau took over for Glen Hanlon:
In summary, under Boudreau, when the Caps have had as many or more power play chances as their opponents in a game, they've gone 58-20-10 and just 38-28-6 when they've been asked to kill more penalties than the other team. When they find themselves in a two-opportunity or greater deficit, they're an even .500 (23 wins, 23 losses).
As for Boyd Gordon's magic number of four minor penalties committed in a game, the Caps are 57-19-10 since the coaching change when having to kill four or fewer penalties in a game.
And while opportunities tell some of the story, efficiency tells the rest. Here's what the numbers look like when considering power play goal differentials in a game under Boudreau:
That's 44-6-2 when the Caps' power play outscores the opponent's extra man unit.
To be sure, there's some auto-correlation going on - the less-skilled, slower teams are more likely to have to take penalties against the Caps and are likely to be teams that the Caps would usually beat anyway, and the more-skilled, faster teams are more likely to force the Caps to take penalties and are likley to be teams with which the Caps would have more difficulty anyway.
But the numbers speak for themselves (despite all the other words in this post): discipline and effective special teams are not just a key to success, they're the key, especially come the NHL's spring second season. There's no time like the present to break old bad habits... before they break the team.
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Dude, whoever did the research on this one, I’m sending 4 nymphomaniac 21-year-old Swedish girls, a truckload of jello and a Trojan party pack.
That is awesome stat work.
Res ipsa loquitur on the substance of the post – don’t know that anything I say can add to that work.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
I love this sport too much. The first thing that crossed my mind was, “They’re probably more reliable defensively.”
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And I was thinking “probably good two-way players,” which made it even better.
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by J.P. on Oct 8, 2009 4:04 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Is now the time to say that the Philly game was refereed really badly and that the penalty count should probably have been 6, minusing the 3 PPs that got scored on?
Even according to the chart up there, the Caps were 2-0 when taking 6 penalties in a game. If not for piss-poor refereeing, the Caps would have made that 3-0.
You’re reading the chart slightly wrong – it’s 2-0-0 when there’s a -6 differential in PP opportunities, not when taking 6 penalties.
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Can you explain why that makes any difference?
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions
If the Caps take ten penalties and the Flyers take four (not counting coincidentals in either case), there’s a -6 differential. If the Caps take six and the Flyers take none, there’s a -6 differential. Obviously, these are not the same situations.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
What was the differential for the Philly game? (and for future reference, where does one find this out for oneself?)
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 2:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Here is the penalty summery for the game. Caps took 9 minors, Flyers took 6. If I understand correctly, that’s a delta of -3. That doesn’t include the offsetting majors for fighting, buy that has no affect on the delta.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Whoops. This was already discussed below. My mistake.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions
The power plays were 9-5, Philly.
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Ah. I guess I confused PP opportunities with actual penalties. Again, my mistake.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Specifically to your point about Tuesday night’s game, the Caps committed nine minors but the differential was four (the Caps had five PPs). Had the Caps been whistled three fewer times, it would have been one of those “-1” games.
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The .615 point percentage in minus-1 games is pretty impressive, imo. Over a full 82, that would be 101 points…
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
That’s an interesting table, then, as, at first impression, you’d think the closer in differential they are in penalties, the more likely they’d win. Then again, these Caps aren’t good at close games.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 2:51 PM EDT up reply actions
The larger the penalty differential, the more you’d expect them to win, no? If they’re even no one really has the upper hand but if the Caps have eight and their opponents have two (for a differential of +6) they have a lot more powerplay opportunities and thus get to attack a lot more.
The larger the positive penalty differential… (I know that’s what you meant.)
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Though I guess a positive number is larger than a negative one, though “differential” is an absolute… whatever.
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Actually, I’d expect both. Unless both teams are taking close on 10 penalties (i.e. Tuesday), I think the Caps take a mostly 5-on-5 game 8-out-of-10 times.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions
So you’d expect the Caps to pretty much always win unless they took a ton of penalties while the other team wasn’t taking any… pretty much the point here.
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Right, which is when I misread the table slightly and caused the previous tangential conversation :-).
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:05 PM EDT up reply actions
And actually, that’s disproven by the table. Their record at -6 differential is impressive.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions
It’s a ridiculously small sample and a complete and total fluke. If they play 100 games with a -6 PP differential, they won’t win more than a handful of them.
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It’s also worth noting that the number of powerplays doesn’t account for their quality. For example if the Capitals take a penalty and go down a man and then the Flyers take one six seconds later to go 4-on-4, the Caps still get credited a powerplay at the end of the sequence – but only a six second long one.
That might be part of the reason the powerplay goal differential is so much more highly correlated with record than powerplay chances are.
Truth, especially with respect to those small samples.
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That’s an even-out PP, though with a +1 to both teams, which will have no bearing whatsoever to the table above.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions
:shakes hand:
It doesn’t matter; there’s hockey tonight.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Additionally, I think it’s more impressive if you take that table and combine the records of -4 thru -6 and they still have a winning record, given the increasing (assumed) difficulty those games take with such a swung differential.
by DrinkingPartner on Oct 8, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions
And since I know the next question, here are the two -6’s they somehow won:
- Feb 15, 2009 vs. Florida (listed incorrectly as a -7 on that link)
- Apr 26, 2009 vs. NYR
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I agree that the Caps probably win a mostly 5-on-5 game or a game where the powerplay chances are even, but I think they’re even more likely to win one where they have significantly more powerplays than their opponent – that’s what I was getting at.
Given the subject my language could have been clearer though.
It would be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between gross number of penalties and record.
I think the answer to your question is just that the study above focuses on differential, and not gross.
It does seem more intuitive to me to focus on differential. My theory is that the Caps will draw penalties at a fairly constant rate: you can probably pencil them in for 4-6 PP opportunities a game. If they then limit their penalties to 4 or less, they will be even or positive in terms of differential, and you see what the results of that typically are, above.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
One thing we can recall from last year, though, is that the Caps were, at times, doing poorly in both taking and drawing penalties, and that makes some sense in that the root cause of both is often the same – not moving the feet enough.
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If memory serves, they took 5 against Boston.
"Good crowd out there tonight, boys, let's really try to win this one."
They have 17 nminor penalties through 3 games…a bit less than 6 per game…not so good.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
Two things that are a little surprising
1) Just six teams took less PIM (1041) last season than the Caps
2) Jeff Schultz was single-handedly responsible for every one of those penalty minutes/Washington Capitals discussion boards.
1) Just six teams took less PIM (1041) last season than the Caps
And the Caps had the 28th most fights in the NHL last year. Not good.
I think what he’s saying is that the Caps took the 7th fewest penalties in the league last year, not 7th most
Also of note: Caps had the 3rd most times shorthanded in the league – 387.
They had the 19th most PP opportunities in the league – 337.
In other words, they were minus-50 for the year in PP differential.
Not good, as you note.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
Correct you are, sir. I was thinking that I’d seen them really high on a penalty list, but I think I was remembering that they were near the top in times SH.
Yeah. They don’t have a ton of total PIM because of the lack of fighting.
They did, however take the 6th most minor penalties
Looks like they’re on the same track this year…hope they turn that around.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
2) Jeff Schultz was single-handedly responsible for every one of those penalty minutes/Washington Capitals discussion boards.
I know this is a joke, but I’ll still point out that only four defensemen in the entire League who played at least forty games last season took fewer PIMs/60 at 5-on-5 than Schultz.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Since behind the net is a new obsession of mine, I thought this table was pretty interesting. As much grief as Semin gets about his penalties taken, he’s not the worst offender. Laich and Fehr stand out as being very strong with regards to penalties taken vs. drawn.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions
Keep spending time on that site and you’ll wind up loving Fehr. He does incredibly well is almost any metric.
Yea, especially with corsi
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Yep. We looked at that stuff (penalties taken and drawn) last March. Always really interesting stuff.
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Thanks for the link. This was back when I was just lurking here.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
So far this year (since we’re dying to know), here’s how the team shakes out in penalty +/- per 60 at 5-on-5 (per BtN, only guys who’ve taken and/or drawn a penalty included):
MIKEKNUBLE 1.7
NICKLASBACKSTROM 1.3
SHAONEMORRISONN 1.3
MIKEGREEN 0
BROOKSLAICH 0
ALEXANDERSEMIN 0
BOYDKANE 0
ALEXANDEROVECHKIN -1.3
JOHNERSKINE -1.4
CHRISCLARK -2.2
MILANJURCINA -3
BOYDGORDON -4.9
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Kind of surprising that Gordon has already taken 2 penalties when he only had 5 all of last season
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Oct 8, 2009 3:43 PM EDT up reply actions
The good news is, if you go back to ‘07-’08, they took the 3rd fewest PIMS in the league, and the 7th fewest minors. And most of that team is still here, and Boudreau is still coaching them. It can be corrected.
"Good crowd out there tonight, boys, let's really try to win this one."
Jeff Schultz was single-handedly responsible for every one of those penalty minutes/Washington Capitals discussion boards.
I’d rec this, but I’m waiting for Schultz-Dubinsky 2: Electric Boogaloo.
"Good crowd out there tonight, boys, let's really try to win this one."
That’s pretty darn good, differentiating between restraining fouls and physical fouls and pointing to Erskine and Jurcina.
I have to disagree on the relative virtues of each, though. While I think a lot restraining fouls indicate poor positioning, physical fouls don’t always intimidate and are sometimes easier to draw. I was always a big fan of parking myself right outside the crease when playing against super aggressive defensemen because I knew they’d come cross checking me or trying to mix it up after the whistle and I’d be able to draw a penalty.
Not buyin this one...
I’m usually with you JP, but not on this one.
For some reason the numbers seem out of place with the reality of what penalties mean in a game. Sometimes taking a penalty to avoid a 2 on 1 or similar out-maned situation is a net good thing. Sometimes penalties in the offensive zone mean the team is working really hard and got called for goalie interference (but , yes I know… most offensive zone penalties deserve a caning). It just seems that the idea that the number of penalties they took last year directly correlated to losses seems too simplistic. I can’t put my finger on it, and am not making a strong case for my argument here, but intrinsically I feel like “bad panalties” directly cost the caps… what… 3-5 games last year? Which feels like a number you could attribute to all teams (good and bad in regards to taking penalties).
Further to say it is THE reason for winning or losing seems completely overstated, for instance, doing a little Excel work I came up with only +2.8 game improvement per season if you removed one penalty from each row (meaning apply the winning percentage of the even games to all the -1 games and see how many more games you would have won in that same number of games). 2.8 games is not insignificant, but it seems to me the quality of our defense and goalie play FAR outweighs 2.8 games over the season.
God kills a kitten every time Sydney Crosby whines.
I should correct my own numbers… I actually tried to be positive and gave the benefit of the doubt that the +4 percentage of 0.000 was a statistical anomaly and used the same .692 winning percentage when moving up the numbers from +3 to +4, otherwise the stats would truly say that they are 8.5 games WORSE by removing one penalty per game. All the more reason I’m not buyin it.
God kills a kitten every time Sydney Crosby whines.
by Chris meet Alex on Oct 8, 2009 4:30 PM EDT up reply actions
For some reason the numbers seem out of place with the reality of what penalties mean in a game. Sometimes taking a penalty to avoid a 2 on 1 or similar out-maned situation is a net good thing. Sometimes penalties in the offensive zone mean the team is working really hard and got called for goalie interference (but , yes I know… most offensive zone penalties deserve a caning).
Whether it’s a good penalty or a bad penalty is of little consequence. All penalties count for two minutes/four/five minutes depending on their severity. No time is added or taken off for whether or not they’re good or bad and whether a penalty is good or bad it still provides the opposition with a good chance to score. Plus, even if you’re going to differentiate between “good” and “bad” penalties you have to account for the situation that gives rise to them. Yeah, tripping a guy who’s about to take off for a breakaway might be a good penalty, but if it’s the result of an ill-timed pinch by a defenseman, it’s the result of a bad play. How do you score that?
It just seems that the idea that the number of penalties they took last year directly correlated to losses seems too simplistic.
It’s not just the number of penalties, it’s the penalty differential. When you take more penalties you give your opponents more powerplay time and a better chance to score – something that makes sense logically and is backed up by the data.
Further to say it is THE reason for winning or losing seems completely overstated, for instance, doing a little Excel work I came up with only +2.8 game improvement per season if you removed one penalty from each row (meaning apply the winning percentage of the even games to all the -1 games and see how many more games you would have won in that same number of games).
The effect is going to be much greater the closer you are to zero because penalties in that situation are more likely to swing a game. The difference between a -1 and +1 penalty ratio is huge; going from -1 to 0 to +1 takes you to 101 to 116 to 145 points over the course of an NHL season. Huge difference.
But if you look at the difference between going from +4 to +6 or -4 to -6 the effect isn’t going to be as pronounced, for a number of reasons. One is that those games are few and far between – they’re outliers and they’re not enough to draw any reasonable conclusions from. The other is that in a game where chances are even getting just one more is huge whereas getting yet another powerplay in a game where you’ve already had five more than your opponent isn’t as significant, the same way increasing your shot total by five is more meaningful when you have the same number of shots than you opponent than when you’re already out-shooting them by twenty.
Take out the outliers and/or account for the fact that the effect isn’t linear and it’s pretty pronounced.
Agreed that the outliers are worthless.
So let’s look only at the -1, 0 and +1.
If you improve:
-1 to 0 you improve by 1 game,
0 to +1 improves 8 games
+1 to +2 loses you 11 games.
I agree with you and yet I don’t. I’m still of two minds… (yes, yes, I know… the smart one is the one that agrees with you)
God kills a kitten every time Sidney whines.
by Chris meet Alex on Oct 8, 2009 5:58 PM EDT up reply actions
-1 to 0 you improve by 1 game,
0 to +1 improves 8 games
+1 to +2 loses you 11 games.
I don’t see where you arrive at this conclusion?
The Caps points percentage at -1 translates to 101 points over a full season.
At 0, it translates to 116 points (a 7.5 win improvement).
At +1, they go to 145 points (a 14.5 win improvement).
You might argue causation here, but the correlation is extremely strong.
"You're gonna eat that g**d**n Koho, three!"
The caps win percentage at +2 was .357, if you apply that to the 22 games they played at +1, they would have only won 9.7 of those games by the numbers, which is 11 less than the 19 they won at +1. Which is why I don’t buy the numbers.
God kills a kitten every time Sidney whines.
by Chris meet Alex on Oct 8, 2009 6:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Selection bias. Not every single observation, or even class of observations in a limited sample size, is going to going along with the trend; that doesn’t render the trend moot, especially in a case like this where we haven’t isolated the effect of penalty differential.
The fact that the trend is bucked in this one instance is like saying that the fact Brad Pitt makes more money than your tax attorney buddy is evidence that people who go to law school don’t make more money than people who drop out of college. It’s not true in every case, but it’s true as a general rule.
To further that, even if you don’t think the correlation in powerplay differential is that big the effect of powerplay goal differential is huge and obviously you stand a better chance coming out on top there if you have more powerplays than the other team.
I can’t argue with that.
Perhaps the reason my head is trying to buck the numbers is that I don’t feel that the penalties are really the problem but rather the symptom. Lack of effort, poor decision making, hubris, and of course lack of discipline. But I guess I shouldn’t be so literal here… I’m guessing that’s the assumed part of this whole discussion.
(Maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better about the rash of penalties I’ve been taking lately! ;)
God kills a kitten every time Sidney whines.
by Chris meet Alex on Oct 9, 2009 11:24 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t feel that the penalties are really the problem but rather the symptom. Lack of effort, poor decision making, hubris, and of course lack of discipline.
Agreed – penalties are the manifestation of many underlying issues.
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It’s not just the number of penalties, it’s the penalty differential.
I’d take it a step further and say it’s also at least partly timing of penalties. It seemed to me in those last two games that practically every time the Caps or their opponent scored, there was a Caps penalty shortly thereafter.
I’m wondering what the stats would say about win:loss in games where they took penalties 2 minutes (or less) after a goal (for or against) or another penalty (for or against). I bet it would be an even better predictor than the differential.
I think more along the lines of finding a polynomial function to fit the data and integrating it, with also finding the derivative to predict the Caps point percentage at, say, a +2.5 PP differential. Fundamental Theorem of Calculus anyone?
by red army line on Oct 9, 2009 12:04 AM EDT up reply actions
yeah! some of us here are only in precalc!
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Florida
|
53 | 25 | 17 | 11 | 61 |
|
Washington
|
54 | 28 | 21 | 5 | 61 |
|
Winnipeg
|
56 | 26 | 24 | 6 | 58 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
53 | 23 | 24 | 6 | 52 |
|
Carolina
|
55 | 20 | 25 | 10 | 50 |
(updated 2.10.2012 at 9:27 AM EST)
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