As I listened to TSN’s resident gout expert Ryan Rishaug talk about the Edmonton Oilers’ penalty kill and why he thought it has been so bad for the last two seasons yesterday, I had to dig in and see if, A) What he was saying was true and B) If it was true, how bad could it possibly be?

To paraphrase what Rishaug said, he basically summed things up to the Oilers’ PK forwards not getting into the shooting lanes enough since the beginning of last season. If I’m not mistaken, there was talk about that last season as well and I remember Zack Kassian’s name specifically being brought up with regards to players not doing enough on the PK to prevent shots from getting to the net.

Edmonton’s PK since the start of last season and up until today is the 4th worst in the entire league (76.2%).

I do believe that there’s room for penalty killing specialists on NHL teams and the players that fall under that category take pride in having that skillset. The Oilers don’t really have any of those sort of players right now. Maybe Mark Letestu in the past might’ve been considered one as he did average about 1:56 minutes of PK time per game last year.

I wanted to go and see what kind of numbers we could use to determine what a good penalty killer looked like. I haven’t read any other articles on this, so I’m sort of flying by the seat of my pants here. I imagine the smarter folk who take the time to read this will leave their opinions in the comments below.

I think it’s possible that if the Oilers acquired forwards who took some pride in being defensive players, their PK numbers would go up. Specifically, these three stats are ones I’ve looked at as areas Edmonton MUST improve in.

• Faceoff Percentage
• Blocked Shots
• Relative Corsi For (PK)

FACEOFFS

Mike Johnston and Ryan Walter have a fantastic book called “Hockey Plays and Strategies” and in that book it says this about winning faceoffs on the PK,

Win Face-offs. Possession of the puck and a quick clear will not only force the PP unit to go back 200 feet for the puck but also frustrate the PP unit, which is what you want. 

As we speak the Oilers are right shit at winning faceoffs on the PK. Since 2017/18, here are their five best pivots on the PK draw:

• Draisaitl – 52.4%
• Letestu – 48.8%
• Brodziak – 48.7%
• Khaira – 44.8%
• RNH – 42%

Special nods go to Connor McDavid and Ryan Strome for having a sub-35% winning percentage on the faceoffs when on the kill.

Edmonton NEEDS players who can win faceoffs when they’re a man (or two) down. Puck possession is so bloody important as every second your team has the puck is a second that the team on the power play doesn’t.

Here are some of the top faceoff men over the last season and a half. Following that list will be five players who I think Edmonton could possibly target for acquisition.

Claude Giroux (PHI) – 56.4%
Jay Beagle (VAN) – 54.2%
Andrew Copp (WPG) – 54.2%
Patrice Bergeron (BOS) – 53.75%
Ryan O’Reilly (STL) – 53.7%

Luke Glendening (DET) – 51.2%
JG Pageau (OTT) – 50.8%
Scott Laughton (PHI) – 50.8%
Nate Thompson (LA) – 50.5%
Riley Nash (CLB) – 49.2%

BLOCKED SHOTS

Get body position in shooting lanes and know when to go down to block shots. Blocking shots can be a big boost to the penalty kill.

That quote also from Johnston and Walter’s book.

Here’s who has the most blocked shots since the beginning of last season amongst the Oilers penalty killing forwards and in brackets the league leaders in that time.

• Khaira – 18 (B.Tanev (WPG) – 47)
• RNH – 9 (L.Glendening (DET) – 37)
• McDavid – 7 (C.Sceviour (FLA) – 33)
• Kassian – 6 (A.Watson (NSH) – 30)
• Strome – 5 (C.Soderberg (COL) – 30)

Sorry if that looks a bit messy. As you can see, the Oilers DO have a problem with getting in the shooting lanes. In fact, one might conclude that they refuse to do it. They play the Czech Press on the PK (as most NHL teams do) and the point of that system is to keep the shooting lane down the middle clogged up (so no point shots get through) and to prevent the cross-ice one-timer (think Stamkos to Kucherov).

Leon Draisaitl has the 4th most TOI on the PK in that time frame and he has 3 blocked shots. This begs the question, do you want your best players on the PK blocking shots? Some would say no (remember Nuge breaking his hand?) and some would say yes (the 2011-12 NJ Devils)… More skill theoretically could create more chaos for the opposing team’s PP unit.

I’m not a fan of Edmonton having Leon or Connor on the PK. I’d prefer the team use specialized bottom-6 forwards. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the best 2-way forward on the team mind you, so I’m comfortable with him playing there.

Here are five candidates that Edmonton could target to improve their courage department on the kill:

• Brian Gibbons (NJ) – 25
• Tom Pyatt (VAN?) – 25
• Chris Wagner (BOS) – 23
• Tyler Pitlick (DAL) – 21
• Andrew Copp (WPG) – 20

CORSI FOR (RELATIVE)

We’d like to have the puck possession metrics in our favor regardless of the on-ice scenario. The more we have the puck with on the penalty kill, the less time the other team has to score (or attempt to score).

Some of the best penalty killers in the league have positive relative CF% while on the PK,

• Tyler Toffoli (LA) – 11.2
• Claude Giroux (PHI) – 10.57
• Reilly Smith (VGK) – 9.20
• Andrew Cogliano (ANH/DAL) – 8.97
• Ryan Johansen (NSH) – 8.85

Rob Vollman said in the original Hockey Abstract, “A great defensive player should be able to handle the tough minutes without their team getting dominated…”

Here are the Oilers’ best players in this category,

• Pakarinen: 5.94
• Draisaitl: 5.71
• McDavid: 5.27
• RNH: -0.57
• Letestu: -0.74
• Brodziak: -0.84
• Khaira: -1.41
• Strome: -3.94

Admittedly, using this metric is a bit uncomfortable to me. I prefer to use the “against” numbers because I feel they tell us more about the defensive side of the puck. But there’s no doubt, it wouldn’t hurt to have more players in the positive of this statistic going forward.

Here are the top-5 teams on the PK from 2017/18-now and in brackets the amount of forwards who have a CF% rel above zero,

1. San Jose (10)
2. New Jersey (10)
3. Vegas (8)
4. Boston (12)
5. Minnesota (12)

Of course, some of those forwards will have only played a short time on the PK and the numbers will be a bit skewed but you can click on each team above and check it out for yourself. Nevertheless, Edmonton only has three players in the good… And that my friends is NOT GOOD enough.

Perhaps the Oilers could send their scouts to watch these players and maybe even trade for one or five:

• Blake Coleman (NJ): 5.70
• Garnet Hathaway (CGY): 3.87
• Andrew Copp (WPG): 1.87
• Scott Laughton (PHI): 1.40
• Blake Comeau (DAL): 1.31

CONCLUSION

I’ve found three players who’ve shown up in more than one of the categories we’ve looked at today that I believe would be outstanding pickups for Edmonton to either finish up this season or to start the next.

• Andrew Copp (WPG)
• Luke Glendening (DET)
• Scott Laughton (PHI)

I don’t imagine that the Jets are interested in letting Copp go nor Philly with Laughton but Luke Glendening should be a very acquirable player for the Oilers. He’s a right-handed industrious center who is very good on faceoffs. A player like him would’ve been helpful in OT vs. MTL the other night eh?

In my opinion, there are three things that are absolute imperatives for a successful penalty kill at any level of hockey.

1. Work Ethic – Outwork the power play and you’ll come out on top nearly every time. The PP units tend to get a bit “relaxed” as they get set up. Compete hard for those loose pucks like your life depends on it.
2. Communication – Gotta talk out there. It improves awareness and positioning.
3. Active Sticks – Keep those sticks in the correct passing lanes and on the ice at all times.

As for the Oilers, I believe they’ve struggled with all three of these since game one of 2017/18 at one point or another.

I haven’t the foggiest idea as to why their forwards won’t get their bodies in the way of shots. When you’ve got tough MFers like Zack Kassian, Kyle Brodziak, and JJ Khaira out there and they’re not willing to take a puck in the shinpads to help prevent a goal, I think that’s more to do with what’s between the ears and less to do with an actual skill set. Honestly, if Jesse Puljujarvi is going to lay his body down on the ice to block a shot (who does that anymore?), why can’t these guys do it?

Thoughts? Leave ’em in the comments below and enjoy the game tonight! Looks like Oscar is back and put some money down on Caggiula scoring a goal tonight 😉

Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick