Wayne Gretzky use in penalty kill situations

[overpass]

I looked up the box scores for Gretzky's SH scoring in his first 3 seasons. This is before his peak SH scoring, but he was still one of the top SH scorers in the league in this time. There are some very clear trends, most of which point to Gretzky as a frontrunner who scored his SH points in the easiest situations.

• For some reason he didn't score any SH points before December 23 in these 3 seasons, and then scored 11 SHG and 6 SHA from Dec 23 forward in these 3 seasons. I'm not sure what to make of that, maybe he didn't usually kill penalties to start the season.
• 16 of his 17 SH points were against opponents who finished under 0.500. He was picking on the weaker teams.
• 16 of his 17 SH points came in the second half of the penalty, and 8 of 17 were in the last 30 seconds of the penalty. So he wasn't scoring against fresh first units, he was taking advantage of second units or tired players.
• 14 of his 17 SH points were scored while his team was leading. So he was either turning over an opponent who is pressing to tie the game, or he was running up the score in a game that's already won.
• 10 of his 17 SH points were scored when his team already had scored more goals than the opponent would finish the game with, meaning his team already had enough goals to win. Obviously that wasn't always clear at the time, it just highlights the trends of Gretzky scoring later in the game and when his team was already leading.
• Only 1 of his 17 SH points was scored in the first 15 minutes of the game. This is Gretzky being better conditioned than his opponents later in the game, or taking advantage of the game situation later in the game.

Season	Date	Home/Road	Opponent	Opp W%	Period	Time	PP start	Seconds elapsed	Point type	Score	Final Score
1979-80	28-Dec-79	Road	Vancouver	0.438	2	17:39	16:07	92	G	4-1	5-3
1979-80	1-Feb-80	Home	Winnipeg	0.319	1	16:45	14:54	111	A1	4-0	9-2
1980-81	7-Jan-81	Home	Washington	0.438	1	17:35	16:01	94	A2	3-1	6-3
1980-81	7-Jan-81	Home	Washington	0.438	2	19:35	17:42	113	G	5-1	6-3
1980-81	11-Jan-81	Road	Quebec	0.488	2	4:44	2:53	111	G	3-1	6-3
1980-81	14-Jan-81	Road	Toronto	0.444	3	14:13	12:34	99	A1	5-4	7-4
1980-81	18-Feb-81	Home	St. Louis	0.669	3	8:07	6:43	84	G	8-2	9-2
1980-81	4-Mar-81	Road	Rangers	0.463	2	16:22	16:14	8	G	2-1	5-5
1980-81	4-Apr-81	Home	Winnipeg	0.200	3	18:21	17:17	64	A1	7-2	7-2
1981-82	23-Dec-81	Home	Vancouver	0.481	3	6:17	4:55	82	A1	4-1	6-1
1981-82	27-Dec-81	Home	Los Angeles	0.394	2	15:11	13:52	79	G	4-2	10-3
1981-82	27-Dec-81	Home	Los Angeles	0.394	3	7:26	5:58	88	G	8-2	10-3
1981-82	9-Jan-82	Home	Calgary	0.469	1	7:38	6:30	68	G	2-0	7-2
1981-82	28-Feb-82	Road	Washington	0.406	3	9:47	8:25	82	A1	3-1	4-1
1981-82	15-Mar-82	Home	Los Angeles	0.394	2	17:54	16:20	94	G	2-2	3-3
1981-82	25-Mar-82	Road	Calgary	0.469	2	8:10	6:57	73	G	3-1	7-2
1981-82	25-Mar-82	Road	Calgary	0.469	2	8:37	6:57	100	G	4-1	7-2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

If someone wants to continue into his peak SH scoring years, feel free, or I'll get to it myself later.

I ran the numbers for Gretzky's 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons. Did the trends from his first 3 seasons hold up?

First of all, Gretzky was clearly playing more time on the first unit PK in 82-83 and 83-84 than he had in his first 3 seasons. He wasn't just an end of penalty poacher anymore. For 1982-83, he scored 5 of his 10 points in the first 30 seconds of the penalty. 3 of the 10 points were in the last 30 seconds of the penalty, and 2 were right in the middle. For 1983-84, 16 of his 23 shorthanded points came in the first 60 seconds of the penalty and 7 of 23 in the last 60 seconds. So that was a change -- he was taking on the opponent's top power play unit and still scoring.

Was Gretzky still picking on bad teams for his shorthanded points? Not in 1982-83, when he scored half his shorthanded points against strong opponents. Yes in 1983-84, as he did score almost all of his shorthanded points against weaker teams. Only 2 SHG and 3 SHP in 27 games against teams over 0.500. Maybe what stands out the most is that he scored 6 SHG and 10 SHP in 16 regular season games against Winnipeg in these two seasons! Plus another 2 SHG and 3 SHP in 6 playoff games. Poor Dave Babych...

Was Gretzky still scoring when his team had the lead? Yes, but not as much. Two-thirds (22 of 33) of his shorthanded points were scored while Edmonton had the lead, and even for most of those points the game was still in play. Mostly because he was scoring those shorties earlier now, with 10 of his 23 shorthanded points coming in the first period for 1983-84.

1982-83

Season	Date	Home/Road	Opponent	Opp W%	Period	Time	PP start	Seconds elapsed	Point type	Score	Final Score
1982-83	9-Oct-82	Road	Vancouver	0.469	3	19:32	18:35	57	G (EN)	6-3	6-3
1982-83	29-Oct-82	Home	Los Angeles	0.413	3	17:34	16:34	60	G	6-2	6-3
1982-83	1-Dec-82	Home	Philadelphia	0.663	2	12:24	10:32	112	A1	1-1	2-4
1982-83	11-Dec-82	Road	Minnesota	0.600	1	16:34	16:13	21	G	3-2	4-5
1982-83	5-Jan-83	Road	Winnipeg	0.463	3	14:03	13:27	36	A1	6-2	8-3
1982-83	5-Jan-83	Road	Winnipeg	0.463	3	15:08	13:27	101	G	7-2	8-3
1982-83	15-Jan-83	Road	Minnesota	0.600	1	1:55	1:41	14	A1	1-0	10-4
1982-83	15-Jan-83	Road	Minnesota	0.600	3	7:57	7:40	17	A1	9-3	10-4
1982-83	23-Feb-83	Home	Washington	0.588	3	1:26	19:53	93	G	4-2	6-3
1982-83	1-Mar-83	Road	New Jersey	0.300	2	16:25	15:59	26	G	3-1	4-3

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1983-84

Season	Date	Home/Road	Opponent	Opp W%	Period	Time	PP start	Seconds elapsed	Point type	Score	Final Score
1983-84	5-Oct-83	Home	Toronto	0.381	3	2:33	1:34	59	G	4-2	5-4
1983-84	7-Oct-83	Road	Winnipeg	0.456	2	9:56	8:27	89	G	5-4	8-6
1983-84	5-Nov-83	Home	Pittsburgh	0.238	2	15:09	14:40	29	A1	4-1	7-3
1983-84	6-Nov-83	Road	Winnipeg	0.456	2	11:40	11:29	11	G	1-3	8-5
1983-84	9-Nov-83	Road	Washington	0.631	1	11:27	10:48	39	G	2-0	7-4
1983-84	12-Nov-83	Road	Detroit	0.431	1	13:24	13:13	11	A2	4-2	7-3
1983-84	19-Nov-83	Home	New Jersey	0.256	3	18:05	16:30	95	G	13-4	13-4
1983-84	18-Dec-83	Road	Winnipeg	0.456	1	18:33	16:47	106	A2	4-1	7-5
1983-84	21-Dec-83	Home	Winnipeg	0.456	1	19:33	19:06	27	A1	3-1	7-4
1983-84	21-Dec-83	Home	Winnipeg	0.456	1	19:48	19:06	42	G	4-1	7-4
1983-84	21-Dec-83	Home	Winnipeg	0.456	3	19:41	19:25	16	G (EN)	7-4	7-4
1983-84	26-Dec-83	Road	Calgary	0.513	2	6:50	6:03	47	G	4-2	6-3
1983-84	30-Dec-83	Home	Boston	0.65	1	3:32	2:24	68	A2	1-0	2-0
1983-84	9-Jan-84	Road	Detroit	0.431	1	16:38	15:51	47	G	4-0	7-3
1983-84	20-Jan-84	Home	Los Angeles	0.369	2	13:46	13:09	37	G	3-5	7-5
1983-84	21-Jan-84	Road	Los Angeles	0.369	3	9:56	9:43	13	A1	6-3	6-3
1983-84	25-Jan-84	Road	Vancouver	0.456	1	6:32	6:00	32	A1	1-0	6-4
1983-84	15-Feb-84	Home	Winnipeg	0.456	2	4:49	4:34	15	A1	2-1	7-4
1983-84	15-Feb-84	Home	Winnipeg	0.456	3	6:12	5:38	34	G	6-1	7-4
1983-84	22-Feb-84	Road	Pittsburgh	0.238	2	10:35	8:47	108	A1	4-1	9-2
1983-84	4-Mar-84	Home	Montreal	0.469	1	9:58	8:48	70	G	1-0	6-1
1983-84	11-Mar-84	Home	Vancouver	0.456	2	3:52	2:36	76	A1	7-1	12-2
1983-84	15-Mar-84	Road	Montreal	0.469	1	19:19	18:47	32	A1	1-1	2-3

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Big Phil]

I'm not saying it's completely unique, I agree that stars have routinely been used for second-unit and other spot duties on the PK throughout history, and in some cases even more than that. My point, though, is that shorthanded offence mostly didn't really have a significant impact on the overall scoring stats.

Here are the shorthanded points leaders during various portions of NHL history:

Original Six (1943-1967): Jerry Toppazzini
Post-expansion (1968-79): Ed Westfall
Dead Puck Era (1997-2004): Michael Peca
"New NHL" (2006-2022): Patrice Bergeron

Compare that to the top 10 in shorthanded scoring from 1980-1996:

1. Wayne Gretzky, 148
2. Mark Messier, 110
3. Jari Kurri, 80
4. Dave Poulin, 72
5. Steve Yzerman, 67
6. Mario Lemieux, 64
7. Steve Larmer, 55
8. Mark Howe, 51
9. Paul Coffey, 50
9. Brian Propp, 50

Dave Poulin is the only one there that would fit in the Toppazzini/Westfall/Peca/Bergeron group, as the other 9 are all high-end offensive players. I'd argue that's a fundamentally different group of players than you'll find on the shorthanded scoring leaders from any other era in NHL history, which will typically be a mix of checking forwards and elite two-way guys, with the odd great offensive player mixed in.

It just seems like if you had speed and skill and got a regular shift on the PK on a good team in the 1980s then you were very likely to score a bunch of points, and I don't think that's necessarily true for other eras. That makes SH scoring from that era seem like much more of a random lottery based on whether coaches decided to give their stars the chance to pad their stats or not.

That said, you are right that today's game is probably just as much of an outlier in the other direction, at least when it comes to shorthanded scoring. For example, I checked how many of the top 20 players in points per game (min. 200 GP) were also in the top 50 in shorthanded points for each of the eras listed above:

1943-67: 5 of top 20
1968-79: 8 of top 20
1980-96: 8 of top 20
1997-04: 8 of top 20
2006-22: 1 of top 20

Well there you go, yeah Poulin is the guy who sort of stands out there. Even Propp had more offense overall, Larmer too.

I am not sure if there is a specific time in history where this happened, but when do you think the shorthanded goals became more of a threat? There had to be a time when a coach encouraged his players to capitalize on a scoring chance shorthanded rather than drill it down the ice and eat up time. Or did it happen gradually? It's been that way all of my life at least that I can remember.