Penalty kill attempts vs. Penalty kill percentage in the current VHL

[VattghernCZ 983]

I'm a Minnesota Wild fan because I'm a masochist, I guess. Seeing the combination of our penalty kill being utterly useless the last few seasons and the reckless style of play of F̶o̶l̶i̶g̶n̶o̶ H̶a̶r̶t̶m̶a̶n̶ M̶i̶d̶d̶l̶e̶t̶o̶n̶ some players (it has looked much better this season, thank you Hynes!) made me think—what's more important in the VHL, having a stellar penalty kill, or being able to stay away from the penalty box?

 

In this article, I'm going to look through the last few seasons—since the S93 changes in sliders—and compare some data. 

 

For each season, I'm going to list the best penalty-killing team, the least penalized team, and the team with the fewest power play goals against. But I don't actually think these will be very relevant, because, for example, the S95 Moscow lead the league with the fewest powerplay goals against and the highest penalty kill percentage, which would lead you to believe PK% is always the key. But they were also the second-least penalized team. Being elite in both is obviously the ideal scenario, but that's not what this article is about.

 

For this experiment, I'm going to establish two hypothetical teams: team “Disciplined” and team "Killers.”.

 

Team Disciplined is very good at staying away from the penalty box. So good that they would be the second-least penalized team every season. But their penalty kill percentage wouldn't be stellar—ninth overall every season. For each season, I'll use the average of the two least penalized teams in the league and the median* penalty kill percentage.

 

*Median = the value separating the higher half of the data from the lower half of the data. You rank the values from the highest to the lowest (or the other way around; it doesn't matter), and the number exactly in the middle is the median. In cases of even number of values (like in a 16-team league), the median is the average of the 8th and 9th values.

 

Team Killers is great at killing penalties, but their physical play sends them to the penalty box a bit more often. But they're still not a goon squad. For the Killers, I'll use the average of the top two penalty kill percentages and the median amount of penalty kill attempts.

 

Season 96 (so far)

Fewest powerplay goals against: Calgary (35)

Best penalty kill: Malmö (85.49%, 37 GA)

Least penalized: Calgary (226 PKA, 35 GA)

Disciplined: 231 PKA with 82.76 PK%, 40 GA (5th overall)

Killers: 254 PKA with 85 PK%, 38 GA (3rd overall)

 

Season 95

Fewest powerplay goals against: Moscow (36)

Best penalty kill: Moscow (86.53%, 36 GA)

Least penalized: Chicago (262 PKA, 40 GA)

Disciplined: 265 PKA with 82.78 PK%, 46 GA (T-3rd overall)

Killers: 291 PKA with 86.12 PK%, 40 GA (T-2nd overall)

 

Season 94

Fewest powerplay goals against: Calgary (41)

Best penalty kill: Vancouver (85.49%, 55 GA)

Least penalized: Calgary (250 PKA, 41 GA)

Disciplined: 253 PKA with 81.89 PK%, 46 GA (5th overall)

Killers: 286 PKA with 84.73 PK, 44 GA (T-4th overall)

 

Season 93

Fewest powerplay goals against: Warsaw (27)

Best penalty kill: Warsaw (89.62%, 27 GA, wtf Summers)

Least penalized: Warsaw (260 PKA, 27 GA)

Disciplined: 261 PKA with 82.24 PK%, 46 GA (T-2nd overall)

Killers: 306 PKA with 87.82 PK%, 37 GA (2nd overall)

Killers2**: 306 PKA with 85.87 PK%, 43 GA (2nd overall)

 

**Because Lachlan Summers @kirbithan had to just completely break the penalty kill and because the second-highest penalty kill percentage (86.02 by Prague) would be league's best more often than not, I've used the average of the 2nd and 3rd best for this one.

 

Conclusion: Even though the difference is not that significant, it looks like it's slightly more important to keep the penalty kill success rate up rather than to focus on avoiding being penalized. At least with the current settings.

Edited Saturday at 09:13 AM by VattghernCZ

[SMYLS4 59]

So seems like its best to be the team that takes the least amount of penalties in general. But if you're not the best at taking few penalties you should just focus on having a really solid PK. Its an interesting read and idea. Id be interested to see where the most disciplined teams sit in standings every season compared to the most killer teams. 

[VattghernCZ 983]

28 minutes ago, SMYLS4 said:

So seems like its best to be the team that takes the least amount of penalties in general. But if you're not the best at taking few penalties you should just focus on having a really solid PK. Its an interesting read and idea. Id be interested to see where the most disciplined teams sit in standings every season compared to the most killer teams. 

 

I've mentioned it, but the problem is that there are team good at both.

 

Like this season's Calgary, they're the most disciplined team, while also being the second best penalty killers, obviously they're gonna be first.

 

Or last season's Moscow, they were the best killers, but also the second most disciplined team, obviously they're gonna be first.

 

That's why I cared more about the hypothetical teams, than about real teams. I think it just works better for comparing the importance of the two.