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Let's discuss the Penalty Kill

Draft Guru

Draft Guru

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
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Long Island
One topic that I think has been overlooked by many is the departure of four key penalty killing forwards from last season (Fedotenko, Prust, Dubinsky and Anisimov) and how much that could affect us early on - especially with a shortened training camp.

I am well aware that your most important penalty killer is your goaltender - and we obviously have the best one in the league. But our PK was a definite strength of our team last season. 5th overall in the league at 86.2% and tied for 7th in the league with 8 shorthanded goals.

The Departures:

Artem Anisimov 1:03 TOI SH/Game last season
Brandon Dubinsky 1:15
Ruslan Fedotenko 1:15
Brandon Prust 1:40

The Additions:

Jeff Halpern 1:44
Rick Nash 0:39
Aaron Asham 0:00
Taylor Pyatt 0:00

The Returnees:

Brian Boyle 1:59
Ryan Callahan 1:48
Derek Stepan 1:17
Carl Hagelin 0:25
Brad Richards 0:10
Marian Gaborik 0:05
Mike Rupp 0:00
Chris Kreider 0:00

We pretty much relied on 7 forwards last season on the PK - Boyle, Callahan, Prust, Stepan, Dubinsky, Fedotenko and Stepan. We've lost 4 key guys, and have added 1 in Halpern.

Pencil in Boyle, Callahan, Stepan and Halpern as sure things. That means we need 3 more. And you're looking at a group that has very little experience playing shorthanded.

With the condensed schedule and being fed tons of minutes at even strength and on the power play, I'm not sure I see Torts putting Richards, Gaborik or Nash out there on the PK.

Hagelin would be one clear option, especially due to his speed and work along the boards. He has the all tools you would look for from a PKer.

The rest? I'm not so sure.

Kreider has the speed, but a TON to learn defensively at the NHL level.

Asham hasn't killed penalties for a team since 05/06. Lacks foot speed. Rupp hasn't killed penalties regularly either. Again, lacks foot speed.

Pyatt has some experience in his career going back two and three seasons ago.

Perhaps I'm just nitpicking and over analyzing this since every other area of our team looks extremely solid on paper. With our defense and goaltending being so strong, perhaps we get away with some growing pains up front on the PK while they learn the system. But there's very little time to learn the system. Special teams are so key in hockey and often are the difference between winning and losing.

I just think this is something to watch for as this season starts. We'll be playing against a lot of teams with major firepower on their power plays. A bad start by our PK could put us behind the 8 ball early.
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Boyle-Callahan
Stepan-Halpern

Pyatt and Hagelin are going to have to contribute at some point on the PK, that's going to be critical.
 
Good post, getting the numbers up and informing us on the past of our new guys PK-wise. I had been wondering this myself but hadn't done the research.

Though now that's it's clearly laid out I'm a little more concerned than I was :laugh:

I guess we'll see how Pyatt and Hagelin do.
 
I think that Nah will get some PP time, wont be much but I can see Torts throwing him out there from time to time as he's going to change the focus a bit for the PP side
 
Torts has a plan and being anal about PKs and defensive play, he has roles picked out and Pyatt is definitely on that list of players. Asham, Hagelin will also see some time. Hagelin might do exceptionally well.
 
I'd say we're fine as long as Hagelin and Pyatt can kill penalties. With Hags I have little doubt, and with Pyatt I have simply no idea.

With those two, our last season regulars and Nash (occasional) we have 7 forwards. That should be enough. Only if Pyatt can't really do it we'd have to think about alternatives as I wouldn't want Gaborik or Richards doing it regularly.
 
Good analysis Guru. I like stuff based on research.

I like the idea of Hagelin on the PK. I don't like the idea of someone like Nash or any other stars doing it. A waste of their energy in a spot where they are very unlikely to score. Nash, Gabby, Brad, etc should be scoring, not defending.
 
Pyatt spent over a minute per game on the PK two years ago and 40 seconds the year before. With Vancouver in 2008, he spent over 2:15 per game. 1:11 the prior year. He's willing and has done it before. I think he's a lock.

Hagelin killed penalties throughout his career at Michigan. As DG said, he has everything you look for. He'll see increased time.

Dominic Moore is a good penalty killer. He could be the missing piece. Otherwise, I think the team just increases Boyle's time
 
hags will definitely be a guy leaned on heavily to pick up the slack here. if he ends up on the 3rd line with boyle then i could see hagelin-boyle becoming the top pk unit.
 
Through 8 games, 4-4-0 record.

19th in the league on the PK. 78.4%. 8 PPG against in 37 shorthanded opportunities. 1 shorthanded goal for.

20th in the league in minutes spent shorthanded, 60:17.

Acquire Darrol Powe today to help out on the PK, an area of concern especially with Callahan injured.

For comparisons sake to last season's SH TOI numbers (listed in the original post), here's the numbers so far this season from our forwards:

Brian Boyle 3:23 SH TOI/Game
Ryan Callahan 3:26 (Through 6 games)
Jeff Halpern 2:47
Derek Stepan 1:53
Rick Nash 1:35
Carl Hagelin 1:34
Brad Richards 0:24
Marian Gaborik 0:06
Taylor Pyatt 0:05

Darrol Powe (w/MIN) 1:22


Small sample size, but can't say I didn't see some struggles coming.
 
I feel like stupid even strength play leading to too many penalty kills is more to blame for our poor penalty kill numbers than actually poor forward play on the penalty kill.
 
I like Nash, but only with Boyle. Problem there is that Boyle can't make a pass, so that ruins the point of Nash.
 
Swedish Fish said:
Powe will no doubt help the pk
Click to expand...

i hope so. Rupp was just warming spots on the bench in the rangers system. We needed to make a move. I don't know enough about Powe his stat sheet. If he can fill the same roll he did for the Wild in New York I think we will be ok.
 
If Powe can start munching a couple of PK minutes per game, that would be huge. Wouldn't mind seeing Hagelin getting a touch more SH TOI, also. When pucks get cleared by the D he should be able to beat the other team back every now and then to eat the puck on the boards and kill time.
 
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