Flames Team Discipline

[questionmotives]

Couldn't find any previous threads in my short search, so hopefully this isn't a FATA...

One of the topics that I don't think gets enough attention is the fact that the Flames are second last (behind Carolina) in team penalty minutes. This is a departure from the Darryl Sutter era, where the team was an annual leader in fighting majors.

With Brian McGrattan no longer part of the picture, we no longer employee a full time goon. This isn't to suggest that there aren't guys on the team willing to drop the mitts, but as the culture of professional hockey changes (and more specifically - the culture of this team), the Flames have emerged as one of the most disciplined teams in the NHL.

But I'm not talking just in terms of fighting majors. The Flames have earned a reputation as one of the hardest working teams in the league, but they've done so WHILE staying out of the penalty box. That isn't an easy thing to do, but I would suggest it has been a crucial part of their success so far this season.

Johnny Gaudreau has yet to take a seat in an NHL penalty box (cue early Pavel Datsyuk comparisons...), while Brandon Bollig leads the entire team with a relatively meagre 40 PIMS. This team just doesn't take many penalties.

I love the style of hockey we have seen this season, and full credit to Bob Hartley for changing the culture of this team.

God, I'm getting soft....

[Huntingwhale]

I think the discipline shows how much the team has bought into what the coach has been preaching. Stay the course, stay out of the box, know your role, and you give the team a chance to win.

[mikephoen]

I love that we don't take those super frustrating offensive zone penalties. Even everyone's favorite whipping boy this year, Glencross, has cut that out of his game. Great buy-in from everyone, and great work by the coaching staff getting this message across.

Only downside is we have less short handed goals than usual! We have some great short handed players with the skill to score while down a man. Few things break the other team's will more than a shortie!

[Red Menace]

I think this is definitely one of the reasons we are "beating" the analytics projections, which largely ignore PP/PK stats from what I can tell.
This has saved us probably 5-10 goals if not more, and probably contributed an extra 3-4 wins I'm guessing

[PugnaciousIntern]

Originally Posted by Red Menace

I think this is definitely one of the reasons we are "beating" the analytics projections, which largely ignore PP/PK stats from what I can tell.
This has saved us probably 5-10 goals if not more, and probably contributed an extra 3-4 wins I'm guessing

Partly that, and partly compensating for our piss poor PP. If we can't score on the man advantage, neither can you!

[Street Pharmacist]

I'm actually writing up a larger picture of what the flames are from an overall picture and this is huge. The have the least PK minutes (quite different from penalty minutes) and an above average amount of PP minutes. That leaves them with a differential of 88 minutes! They've already spend 88 more minutes on the PP that the PK. That's nuts

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by PugnaciousIntern

Partly that, and partly compensating for our piss poor PP. If we can't score on the man advantage, neither can you!

We have 26 powerplay goals for and 26 powerplay goals against

[darthma]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

I think the discipline shows how much the team has bought into what the coach has been preaching. Stay the course, stay out of the box, know your role, and you give the team a chance to win.

http://www.roypumphrey.com/wp-conten...TH-350x262.jpg

[FBI]

Yeah I noticed this too, I am definitely not a fan of Glencross but I think he's had way less offensive zone penalties this year.

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I love that we don't take those super frustrating offensive zone penalties. Even everyone's favorite whipping boy this year, Glencross, has cut that out of his game. Great buy-in from everyone, and great work by the coaching staff getting this message across.

Only downside is we have less short handed goals than usual! We have some great short handed players with the skill to score while down a man. Few things break the other team's will more than a shortie!

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

We have 26 powerplay goals for and 26 powerplay goals against

Certainly someone in the analytics community must have stats to better quantify PP and PK time. Something like PP minutes per goal, or penalty kill minutes per goal, and relate that back to number of opportunities. Than from that you could derive an overall special teams efficiency based on how many powerplays you had or gave up and what your goal differential was. Something where a team with a 17% powerplay and 82% PK, was really even up due to the difference in time spent on each discipline.

In the Flames case our penalty kill is awful, but they don't spend as much time killing penalties, partly due to giving up goals on PP's so several 1:30 second power plays against with a goal...and not being short handed as often.

I always felt a team could have a sub par powerplay so long as they had more powerplays than penalty kills, and that they didn't allow short handed goals against.

[Jiggy]

I think this can be attributed to how well the Flames can skate, and their conditioning.

[Vulcan]

It also has to do with staying on the right side of the puck, so the player doesn't get caught flat footed.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Certainly someone in the analytics community must have stats to better quantify PP and PK time. Something like PP minutes per goal, or penalty kill minutes per goal, and relate that back to number of opportunities. Than from that you could derive an overall special teams efficiency based on how many powerplays you had or gave up and what your goal differential was. Something where a team with a 17% powerplay and 82% PK, was really even up due to the difference in time spent on each discipline.

In the Flames case our penalty kill is awful, but they don't spend as much time killing penalties, partly due to giving up goals on PP's so several 1:30 second power plays against with a goal...and not being short handed as often.

I always felt a team could have a sub par powerplay so long as they had more powerplays than penalty kills, and that they didn't allow short handed goals against.

I always thought the way they calculate it now is stupid - a 10 second PP is the same as a 2 minute one.

Here's what I think should be done. Two variables:

1) how many PPs (PKs) are you generating? Measured as the amount of time, per 60 minutes, that you spend on the PP (PK). (a quantity stat)

2) how efficient is the PP (PK)? Measured by how many goals scored (given up) per 60 minutes.

This would tell you both how good you were at generating PP time (quantity) and how good your PP was at converting (quality).

And a combination of the stats would paint a very thorough picture of a team's special team prowess.