Penalty Plus/Minus - the Final Numbers

by Dirk Hoag on Apr 29, 2008 1:15 PM EDT

Now that I've got my penalty data (mostly) reconstructed, I can present the final Penalty Plus/Minus numbers for the NHL 2007-2008 Regular Season, with Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings holding off the talented trio of Crosby, Datsyuk and Ovechkin to lead the league.

As usual, this list is largely dominated by talented offensive players, who force opponents into taking penalties to avoid giving up dangerous scoring chances. At the bottom of the list are mostly defensemen logging major ice time against elite opponents. To me, what is most interesting is which players go against that stereotyping; offensive players who take too many penalties and end up too low on this list, and elite defenders who carry a heavy burden, without leaving their teammates shorthanded.

Using this perspective, a few players in particular stand out; Colorado's John-Michael Liles at a very respectable +7, or Boston's Marc Savard at a woeful -15, with Nashville captain Jason Arnott not much better at -14.

Another hot topic on the penalty front is the effectiveness of agitators; do pests like Sean Avery or Jordin Tootoo actually goad their opponents into taking foolish penalties, or do their own PIM totals overwhelm any intended benefit? Here are the results for a select few:

Sean Avery, NYR: 46-38 = +8
Darcy Tucker, TOR: 32-24 = +8
Jordin Tootoo, NSH: 34-30 = +4
Jarkko Ruutu, PIT: 34-45 = -11
Chris Neil, OTT: 46-66 = -20

Clearly, some of these guys have more savvy than others in terms of using chippy play to actually help win hockey games. We'll have to see if this line of analysis plays a role in upcoming salary arbitration cases this summer, as player agent Rand Simon noted it did last summer for Sean Avery.

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Not sure what form you have the raw data in, but can you add a "position" column to this? I don't know what position everyone plays off the top of my head :-)

Really interesting numbers, as always.

I wish there was some way to show when these penalties actually gave their team a powerplay vs co-incidental penalties (fighting, roughing, etc) that didn't result in a man advantage.

by Paul Nicholson on Apr 29, 2008 5:26 PM EDT reply actions

This data comes from PBP files, and one of my to-do's is to rebuild my player table, which, when I link it in, will provide the position data. I wanted to get this piece up ASAP, as the "Alternative NHL Awards" got picked up by Kukla and Fox Sports, so traffic's pretty high today and I wanted to take advantage of that.

As to coincidentals, they wash out in the Penalty Plus/Minus because you get an entry on each side (Drawn & Committed).

by The Forechecker on Apr 29, 2008 5:31 PM EDT reply actions

i totally understand on reconstructing the data. My sympathies!

As to coincidentals, they wash out in the Penalty Plus/Minus because you get an entry on each side (Drawn & Committed).

Not necessarily. Guys with more coincidental fighting/roughing (or for that matter hooking/diving) are giving up fewer power plays than players that may draw a lot, but commit a lot as well.

An example would be a player that is involved in 10 evenly penalized fights (5 min each), then draws 3 extra hooking penalties though the course of the year. Meanwhile his teammate trips guys 10 times, and in separate instances draws an interference call 13 times.

One guy never put his team down, but also only gave his team 3 power plays. The other put his team down a man 10 times, and gave his team a man advantage 13 times.

Their "Penalty plus/minus" stat is equal, and is valuable, and i love having it!...but isn't giving you as much of a true story as a "Power Play created" and "Penalty Kill created" set of stats sitting side by side might.

See what i'm getting at?

Plus/minus is and would still be valuable for a quick-and-dirty stat to be able to call out particularly strong and particularly bad guys, but when it comes to players quantifying their value to teams while negotiating contracts, you'd think people would look for a more complete picture.

Not sure how easy or even possible putting together such a stat would be... just curious.

by Paul Nicholson on Apr 29, 2008 7:44 PM EDT reply actions

Maybe I'm just being thick, but both of your examples would come out to a +3 (0 PK's created vs. 3 PP's, and 10 PK's created vs. 13 PP's). For a team with average special teams, those are equivalent scenarios.

Now, if a given team has a lousy PK, then the 2nd guy could be hurting them worse...

by The Forechecker on Apr 29, 2008 8:19 PM EDT reply actions

Nope.

The fighter would result in 10 5-on-5 situations (with two men in the box) with little to no impact on the ice and then 3 power plays for his team.

The other would result in 10 penalty kill situations (yikes!) and 13 power plays for his team (yay!).

The plus/minus is the same, but the actual on-ice impact of creating special teams situations (in either direction) is much different.

This would be especially important if a player's team's PK and Power Play weren't equally strong. If a team had a very weak PK and but a decent PP, then the first guy is an asset, while the second guy puts his team in a world of hurt.

Makes sense?

by Paul Nicholson on Apr 29, 2008 8:40 PM EDT reply actions

Right, in that case there would be a difference, and if the situation was reversed (a team with a good PK and lousy PP, like Nashville), the value is switched.

That's a good example of how this kind of information can help teams choose which players might fit best for their particular setup. Taking a league-wide view, the two hypothetical players we're talking about might be valued equally, but specific teams will find one to be a better fit than the other...

by The Forechecker on Apr 29, 2008 10:19 PM EDT reply actions