The penalty kill will be fine

[McJadeddog]

People are freaking out about our penalty kill this year. It was one of the best PK's in playoff history last playoffs, and we were league average (16th) last regular season. However this year we are dead last with a laughable 60%. The worst team in the league over the past 5 years combined is Anaheim at 78% over that time period. So we are 18% worse than the worst team over the last 5 years. So things look bad, but they won't continue as is. Regression is going to be our friend here.

Right now, our PK save% is an astonishingly low 67.44%. Over the past 5 years the lowest PK save% was 82.57, 81.04, 82.90, 80.93 and 83.45, for an average of 82.18. The lowest since 2007 was the 80.93 mark by the way. Even if we agree that we have the worst goaltending duo in the league and we agree that we will be the worst PK team in the league in the last 6 years (which seems rather unlikely given past performance), we would still improve our PK save% by up to 13.48%. We have had 43 SA on the PK this year, so an increase to the worst performing tending over the past 17 years would have saved an additional 5.8 goals on the year already. Additionally, we have the 27th fewest SA on the PK while have the 20th highest times shorthanded, so we are outperforming in shot suppression on the PK. We also have the 7th best xGF% while on the PK, but have the 32nd best results, lol.

I looked up a bunch of stats while researching this, and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, points to almost historically bad PK goaltending as the main problem.

Click to read more...

 

[CycloneSweep]

People are freaking out about our penalty kill this year. It was one of the best PK's in playoff history last playoffs, and we were league average (16th) last regular season. However this year we are dead last with a laughable 60%. The worst team in the league over the past 5 years combined is Anaheim at 78% over that time period. So we are 18% worse than the worst team over the last 5 years. So things look bad, but they won't continue as is. Regression is going to be our friend here.

Right now, our PK save% is an astonishingly low 67.44%. Over the past 5 years the lowest PK save% was 82.57, 81.04, 82.90, 80.93 and 83.45, for an average of 82.18. The lowest since 2007 was the 80.93 mark by the way. Even if we agree that we have the worst goaltending duo in the league and we agree that we will be the worst PK team in the league in the last 6 years (which seems rather unlikely given past performance), we would still improve our PK save% by up to 13.48%. We have had 43 SA on the PK this year, so an increase to the worst performing tending over the past 17 years would have saved an additional 5.8 goals on the year already. Additionally, we have the 27th fewest SA on the PK while have the 20th highest times shorthanded, so we are outperforming in shot suppression on the PK. We also have the 7th best xGF% while on the PK, but have the 32nd best results, lol.

I looked up a bunch of stats while researching this, and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, points to almost historically bad PK goaltending as the main problem.

It does all point to goaltending. Like a quick look at Natural Stat Trick, we have the 3rd lowest xGA/60 in the league on the PK.

IT again points to goaltending just being bad.

 

[oXo Cube]

It's hard to win when you can't get a save.

Too many posters on here who think the goalies are absolved of all blame if any skater makes any slight mistake on a scoring chance.

 

[GhostfaceWu]

It's both our pk started the year last year almost as bad as this year it's the reason both seasons has seen us start off poorly. Same thing with the pp it wasn't as bad last year to start but it wasn't nearly as good as it should have been to make up for the awful pking. Players aren't sacrificing themselves the same way they did in the playoffs there's no desperation in the kill right now

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

It's hard to win when you can't get a save.

Too many posters on here who think the goalies are absolved of all blame if any skater makes any slight mistake on a scoring chance.

Then they have a good game once in awhile that good goalies are expected to have relatively often and the red carpet is laid out for them.

Our goalie standards are too low.

 

[nexttothemoon]

The issue I have with the "regression to the mean" arguments (and they are valid to some extent of course)... is that just because it won't stay at a 60% level which is HORRIFICALLY bad... that doesn't mean it will get better to the point of being average or even good... it could stay bad all season long and even if it improves 15%... that's still an awful PK.

I think the personnel changes and obviously the team chemistry impact that goes along with that have made a big difference... at least in the short term. It's easy to say the PK is nothing but systems being implemented well and coaching will get the team on board soon... but I think so much is momentum and confidence based and the difference between a good PK and a poor one is such a fine line.

The expressions... "you don't know what you've got til it's gone" and "a team is more than the sum of it's parts" comes to mind... especially on special teams units like the PK. It seems everyone was perfectly in synch and the confidence and trust in each other was sky high when the PK was on absolute fire in the playoffs. I don't think you catch lightning in a bottle very often like that when everything is clicking perfectly... but obviously it would be nice if the team could get back to at least a pedestrian level average PK.

 

[K1984]

It's hard to win when you can't get a save.

Too many posters on here who think the goalies are absolved of all blame if any skater makes any slight mistake on a scoring chance.

I'm guilty of this sometimes, but I think it's a symptom of being so conditioned to have almost zero faith in the goalies.

A routine, whatever turnover that nobody would generally care about gets magnified when you know that any shot has about a 15-20% chance of going in. They basically have to play near perfect hockey with the puck to avoid giving up more than 2 goals.

 

[McJadeddog]

The issue I have with the "regression to the mean" arguments (and they are valid to some extent of course)... is that just because it won't stay at a 60% level which is HORRIFICALLY bad... that doesn't mean it will get better to the point of being average or even good... it could stay bad all season long and even if it improves 15%... that's still an awful PK.

I think the personnel changes and obviously the team chemistry impact that goes along with that have made a big difference... at least in the short term. It's easy to say the PK is nothing but systems being implemented well and coaching will get the team on board soon... but I think so much is momentum and confidence based and the difference between a good PK and a poor one is such a fine line.

The expressions... "you don't know what you've got til it's gone" and "a team is more than the sum of it's parts" comes to mind... especially on special teams units like the PK. It seems everyone was perfectly in synch and the confidence and trust in each other was sky high when the PK was on absolute fire in the playoffs. I don't think you catch lightning in a bottle very often like that when everything is clicking perfectly... but obviously it would be nice if the team could get back to at least a pedestrian level average PK.

The point is that we are currently 13% lower in PK save% than the worst seasonal PK save% that I could find in recorded history. Yes, even if we end up with the 2nd worst PK save% in history, that wouldn't exactly be great (would be 2nd worst ever actually, lol). But even with such a putrid level of improvement, it would still mean that if they rest of our game stayed the same, we would win more games.

Our current PK performance is VERY LIKELY to not be this bad at any future point in the season.