Tracking Penalties

by Jon Steitzer on August 27, 2012 in Analysis, Morning Mashup - 335 Comments

I plead guilty to writing far too many CBA posts in the past few weeks. This week I’m happily returning to a Leafs topic and looking at last season’s penalties.

Finding who took a penalty and who drew a penalty can be found on behindthenet.ca, but I wanted to look at the penalties in specific situations. So I when through the 82 box scores from last season and put together this handy dandy spreadsheet for fans of pivot tables to enjoy. If you’d rather have the Executive Summary, you’ll find some interesting facts listed below.

When the Leafs Fight?
Last season the Leafs fought 8 times when they were leading, 16 times when they were losing, and 11 times when the game was tied. In the case where the game was tied Mike Brown was the team leader in fights, but when the Leafs were ahead Luke Schenn was the leader with 4 fights. No other player had more than one when the Leafs were leading. Also interesting is that the Leafs had a 13-17-5 record in games that fought in.

Penalties Taken/Drawn in Wins and Losses:

Very little surprise here. When the Leafs win they draw more penalties, when the lose they take more. I guess we can consider Shootout losses a bit of an outlier here. It’s also interesting that there is very little gap in the losses between drawn and taken.

What Period Do the Leafs Take and Draw the Most Penalties?

Apparently the second period is the least disciplined period for the Leafs. It’s also encouraging that the Leafs tend to draw more penalties in the third. Less encouraging is that they managed to take three overtime penalties.

How about when they are Leading, Losing, or Tied?

Fantastic that the Leafs are applying pressure, and drawing penalties to get themselves back into games. Of course these numbers are also heavily influenced by the amount of time they spent trailing their opposition this season.

Are the Leafs Leading, Losing or Tied when they are scored on while killing a penalty?

At least the Leafs were already losing when they were giving up powerplay goals though this is pretty evenly balanced.

Now if you look at it by period…

The middle frame was a kiss of death for the Leafs.

And when did they score on the Powerplay?

It’s discouraging to see that the Leafs didn’t use the powerplay to pull themselves back into games more often and…

… for all those extra third period opportunities it’s a huge disappointment that they had a hard time finding third period powerplay goals.

When the Leafs had a Powerplay Goal against, who was most likely to be in the penalty box?

Who was most likely to have drawn a penalty to put the Leafs on a successful powerplay?

When the Leafs are losing or tied in the 3^rd period, who draws the most penalties to put the Leafs on the powerplay?

If you’re interested in looking into the numbers further checkout the spreadsheet. If the Leafs penalty kill struggles as much this year as it has in the past it might not be a bad idea to become acquainted with penalty data. While the trends may be nothing more than coincidence, there are consistencies in the way players behave. It is also a valuable skill to draw penalties and when players are doing that is worth knowing.

LINKS

The Essentials: Toronto Maple Leafs
Michael Forbes does an excellent job of capturing the entire span of history of the Leafs organization in this piece, and given the subject matter I’m sure everyone and there dog would have added or subtracted a couple of different answers. For me I’d put Peter Zezel in the Unsung Hero category, and put the “Pat’s Garage” print in the Swag section.

The Curious Case of Paul Ranger
Jeffler takes a look at Paul Ranger’s return to pro hockey.

Sudbury Wolves Win the Junior Club World Cup
I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Junior Club World Cup, but apparently Josh Leivo did the Leafs proud with his performance there.

What are your honest expectations of/for Phil Kessel?
Somewhere between scoring 30 goals and ending global terrorism. Vintage Leaf Memories has a more thoughtful response.

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