A New Way to Measure Special Team Success in Hockey

I wrote about it last season, but was unable to act and track the figures. But the new season is reasonably underway, and the Maple Leafs have already played out their first 10 scheduled regular season games.

And I have been keeping tabs on them.

I should point out straight away that they are playing a much more exciting brand of hockey than was evident at any time last season. I still believe that this isn't a playoff team and that the franchise would be much better off if they don't make the playoffs this year, but I have enjoyed watching them and look forward to the 70 games we have left.

I am writing today about a new way to track a team's success on special teams. How effective are they at killing penalties? How successful are they on the power play? Hockey box score readers are accustomed to seeing a team's power play success measured along the lines of 1/5. Meaning the team in question had 5 power play opportunities and scored one goal. Such was the case yesterday for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they lost in Phoenix to the Coyotes, by a score of 4-1.

The Penguins first went on the man advantage at 8:19 of the 2nd period as Coyote defenceman David Hale was booked for interference. 11 seconds later, Miroslav Satan scored, knotting the game at 1-1.

Still in the 2nd, at the 14:51 mark, another Coyote, Zbynek Michalek was busted on a hooking charge. The coyotes managed to kill off the penalty in its two minute entirety. Phoenix killed off another 2 minute penalty given to their bench (too many men) starting at 4:37 of the third period.

And in an interesting turn of events, the Coyotes were shortly double booked, as Daniel Carcillo was called for boarding at 8:37, and then, 6 seconds later, at 8:43, Kurt Sauer was penalized two minutes for delay of game. By the time both men stepped out of the penalty box, Pittsburgh had failed to score for 1:54 with a two man advantage, in addition to the two 6-second intervals both before and after with a one man advantage.

And that's that. The newspaper says Pittsburgh went 1 for 5 on the power play. I see it a little bit differently. Hockey, unlike baseball, is played to the clock. Based on the clock, the Penguins power play unit managed 1 goal in 8:11. For these purposes, I count the time spent with a two man advantage as two separate power plays - as, if they had scored, only one Coyote would return to the ice and the Penguins would still have more time with a man up.

Now that I have established my idea, I want to move on to what I am measuring for the Leafs. I have measured their success (or lack thereof) both on the power play and while killing penalties. I would think that a good special teams unit would require less time to score power play goals than it would take their collective opposition to break their penalty killers down. I have tracked each of the first ten games and will continue to update this in ten game increments. I want to see if these ratios are stable, and if they do fluctuate, maybe we can pinpoint changes (perhaps different players seeing special teams time) or if this is fairly random.

One other benefit is that this measurement would allow for easier comparisons of special teams success throughout the league. Special teams are now boiled down into a zero-sum game; whenever one team is on the power play, another team is killing a penalty. A power play goal scored at the midway point of a minor penalty (after 1 minute) means the offensive team needed 60 seconds to score a power play goals and the defensive team was able to kill a penalty for one minute without giving up a goal.

After ten games, the Maple Leafs have scored 11 power play goals in 84 minutes and 33 seconds of power play time. That works out to 1 power play goal scored for every 7:41 of power play time.

In that same time frame, the Leafs surrendered 9 goals while on the penalty kill in a total of 71 minutes and 41 seconds. That works out to one power play goal allowed per 7:57 of penalty killing time.

The Maple Leafs special teams currently is clicking at +16 seconds. So they broke even, but at this time, it is unknown how that ranks compared to other teams. Time permitting, I will pick a focus group to compare them with.