Penalty kill woes are killing the United

[VattghernCZ 717]

London United are in a weird spot. Considered one of the league's elite teams at the start of the season despite some question marks about their blue line, they find themselves fifth in the European Conference with 60 points, tied with Helsinki Titans who have the edge with 1 more win but also have played one more game. While their offense looks strong with 155 goals for good 3^rd highest in the conference, it's the goals against that's holding them down, despite very strong goaltending by Jesse Teno. Their 135 goals against are tied for 4^th worst with Moscow, who have played two more games than London.

While all players but one are plus in the +/- category, the team sports one of the worst penalty killing units in the league. At 80% on dot, they rank 4^th worst in hockey. On top of that, they are the 6^th most penalized team in the league, already having to kill 220 penalties in 49 games. If you combine their lack of discipline with their lackluster penalty kill, it costs them on average 0.90 goals allowed per game, which is the second highest in the league only behind the tanking rebuilding Seattle Bears (1.24 per game, 220 penalties with 71.82% penalty kill success rate, 50 games played). For comparison, league average is 0.74 shorthanded goals allowed per game, median is 0.697, meaning there are more teams allowing less than average, and fewer teams allowing a lot more than average. Who are the teams allowing more than average? Seattle (1.24, 16^th overall), London (0.90, 7^th overall), Chicago (0.84, 11^th overall), Vancouver (0.82, 15^th overall), Warsaw (0.75, 10^th overall) and Toronto (0.74, 9^th overall). See a thing all these teams but London have in common? They're in the bottom half of the standings.

London has been an elite team at even strength. However, if they don't resolve their penalty kill issues, it might cost them dearly.