Habs Penalty Differential and the Benching of Young Players

by Stephan Cooper on Apr 3, 2011 3:22 PM EDT

Jacques Martin has a habit of benching Benoit Poulliot and Lars Eller after a penalty, much to the consternation of these talented young men’s boosters, who ask for the same treatment for veterans. Scott Gomez’s name often comes up, for stupid reasons as we’ll discuss later.

The key difference is how often these players get penalized, not the specific instance. Also important is how often they draw penalties, which is why Max Pacioretty, P.K. Subban and Ryan White don’t get benched. Below is the per 60 minutes even strength penalties taken and drawn and the differential of the two.

Montreal has a PP of 18.8 and PK of 83.8, meaning that the value of players in goals per 60 even strength minutes due to penalty taking/drawing is:

	Drawn	GP60 Value (PP=18.8)	Taken	GP60 negative value (PK=83.8, opposing PP=16.2)	Penalty Differential	Goals per 60 minutes ES differential
Poulliot	0.9	0.1692	1.7	-0.2754	-0.8	-0.1062
Eller	0.7	0.1316	1.6	-0.2592	-0.9	-0.1276
Hamrlik	0.2	0.0376	1.3	-0.2106	-1.1	-0.173
Subban	1.2	0.2256	1.3	-0.2106	-0.1	0.015
Pacioretty	1.7	0.3196	1.1	-0.1782	0.6	0.1414
White	1.7	0.3196	1	-0.162	0.7	0.1576
Halpern	1	0.188	0.9	-0.1458	0.1	0.0422
Plekanec	0.8	0.1504	0.9	-0.1458	-0.1	0.0046
Desharnais	0.9	0.1692	0.9	-0.1458	0	0.0234
Gorges	0.5	0.094	0.8	-0.1296	-0.3	-0.0356
Kostitsyn	0.3	0.0564	0.7	-0.1134	-0.4	-0.057
Spacek	0.6	0.1128	0.7	-0.1134	-0.1	-0.0006
Darche	0.7	0.1316	0.6	-0.0972	0.1	0.0344
Cammalleri	1	0.188	0.6	-0.0972	0.4	0.0908
Gionta	0.5	0.094	0.5	-0.081	0	0.013
Wisniewski	0.9	0.1692	0.5	-0.081	0.4	0.0882
Weber	0.3	0.0564	0.5	-0.081	-0.2	-0.0246
Moen	1	0.188	0.4	-0.0648	0.6	0.1232
Gill	0.1	0.0188	0.4	-0.0648	-0.3	-0.046
Gomez	0.6	0.1128	0.4	-0.0648	0.2	0.048
Picard	0.1	0.0188	0.4	-0.0648	-0.3	-0.046
Pyatt	0.6	0.1128	0.1	-0.0162	0.5	0.0966

Roman Hamrlik costs the team big in penalties, if he wasn’t an essential tough minute eater his ice team would be severely curtailed.
Subban takes more penalties than he draws but Montreal’s good specialty teams play (of which he is a major part) means that the team actually comes out ahead. The same effect, less amplified, applies to Tomas Plekanec.
Paciorety, White, Mike Cammalleri, James Wisniewski and Pyatt are the Habs with the best differential.
Pyatt is an interesting case; he doesn’t draw many penalties, but plays fantastically disciplined. If we take a penalty draw as being worth PP%*assist then about 1/6th of Pyatt’s effective even strength offense is actually from having the discipline to take virtually no penalties while drawing his fair share.
Gomez gets ripped on for taking penalties and Martin is ripped on for not benching him for them. This is ridiculous and probably a result of people letting their disdain for Gomez’s bad counting stats and terrible cap hit to bias themselves against the other parts of Gomez’s game. Gomez draws more penalties than he takes (he takes very few), which is part of why he isn’t on Eller’s and Poulliot’s tight leash. This isn't to say that Gomez isn't deserving a benching, but if he was it's not due to taking penalties.

Stats from Behindthenet.ca and NHL.com

Tweet Comment 4 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Pretty interesting analysis. I think it’d be worthwhile to find out what Eller’s penalty differential is over the last few months since I think he’s improved tremendously since the start of the year. We see him quite often getting into tough areas and taking a beating nowadays.

by Alexandre S on Apr 1, 2011 4:09 PM EDT reply actions

Pouliot definitely has a problem with discipline, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two players watched as closely by refs as he and Subban are. They get away with nothing compared to most players and often get penalized for legal plays.

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/andrewberkshire

by Andrew Berkshire on Apr 2, 2011 5:29 PM EDT reply actions

It does go to show why Pouliot isn’t getting used more as his other microstats are quite good. He has the best even strength point scoring rate, a positive corsi and a positive +/- with a PDO below 1000 against average (QUALCOMP) to below average (Corsi QoC) competition. From watching him play I’m say that he relies on his center to carry the defensive load for him but he is a dangerous player in the offensive zone due to his size, shot and speed. Right now I’d say he’s best used as a lower line offensive threat, but if he makes fairly minor improvements (dicipline being one of them) he could evolve into an effective complimentary 2nd line winger.

by Stephan Cooper on Apr 3, 2011 7:56 PM EDT reply actions