The penalty recap: Which players are taking the most minor penalties?

When you don't like a player, every little thing becomes a huge issue. There are few things that stir up anger in most fans: penalties, icings and giveaways.

No matter how many successful events that player completed, we focus on the bad one.

Today I'd like to take a look at minor penalties, to see how our favourite scapegoats are doing.

Remember that the average power play is running at 19.15% efficiency so far this season. You could say that your team will roughly allow a goal every five power play opportunities. The Habs do a bit better, to the tune of 86.7% during the penalty kill.

They've been on the penalty kill 76 times this season, and are tied with Anaheim for seventh in the league in that department. Fortunately for the Canadiens, they scored five short-handed goals, for first in the NHL. At the same time, they are fourth in PP opportunities with 78, a differential of +2.

In a game, penalties tend to be more or less equal for each team; go figure. Nonetheless, it's not normal for a team that is supposed to focus on puck handling to be penalized that much.

Top in the league

Glossary

Phaneuf and Marchand are in the top 10 of the league. No Semin. So where are the Habs players?

Most Minor Penalties among Habs players

Numbers are provided by ESPN. There is some discrepancy between the total minor and the individual count. Some penalty like elbowing and game delay are counted as minor but not indicated.

No surprise; Subban is first. Defencemen tend to take more penalties, and he plays a lot.

Alex Semin is only 119th and there's no Lars Eller present this year.

Interesting fact, Tomas Fleischmann, a crowd favourite, is 71st. But we have to dig a bit deeper.

Source : war-on-ice. Data is from Tuesday the 24th, prior to any NHL action.

Of course, the sample size is way too small when it comes to Sven Andrighetto.

Both Semin and Fleischmann have a -5 penalty differential, which mean they took more penalties than they drew. If we look at minutes played, Semin is in the top 25 in the NHL, followed by Fleischmann at 79. Basically, Semin has to be more disciplined. Those penalty, combined with his low scoring performances, are nothing to help him get any favor.

As we can see, all the defencemen are in the red, with the exception of Pateryn, who has only played five games. Emelin, another scapegoat, is in the top 3 of the team but still 125^th in the league.

David Desharnais is the best regular on the team in this category, followed by the already dearly missed Brendan Gallagher. Devante Smith-Pelly, on the other hand, can't bring that sort of indiscipline to the first line. He did have a good differential in the past, but that's not the case this season.