Thursday's Numbers: Which Canucks are taking penalties?
by camcharron on Jan 26, 2012 12:10 PM PST
in Statistics
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PrintAgain, a pretty short post today. I'm dealing with a lot of office/administrative issues this week which has cut a lot of time out of my writing, so I'll make a couple of points today about penalties.
I think the Canucks online community, particularly what we find at Nucks Misconduct (as with every SB Nation site) is a collection of diehard fans who also appreciate all aspects of the game, whether it's defense or the finer points of the game. This isn't a slight on the guys who call in to Team 1040 or post on the Canucks message boards; I just kind of think that they're stupid. When I'm looking for an educated fan's take on an event, I'll typically go to that team's SB Nation page and check the comments section.
So, a recurring theme around here, I've noticed, is the amount of penalties the Sedins take in the offensive zone. This happens for two reasons:
1 - The Sedins spent a lot of time in the offensive zone.
2 - The Sedins take a lot of penalties because they are awful at defense.
Via Behind The Net, let's take a look at which Canuck forwards take the most penalties per 60 minutes:
| Name | Taken/60 |
| Hodgson | 0.2 |
| Higgins | 0.5 |
| Malhotra | 0.6 |
| Raymond | 0.6 |
| Booth | 0.8 |
| Burrows | 0.8 |
| Weise | 0.8 |
| Lapierre | 0.9 |
| Hansen | 1 |
| Kesler | 1.1 |
| D. Sedin | 1.1 |
| H. Sedin | 1.3 |
| Volpatti | 1.8 |
The Sedins take fewer penalties than Aaron Volpatti, and that's it. It probably isn't a good thing that the only player that either twin takes fewer penalties then is the Canucks' designated goon.
Also, Cody Hodgson is angelic back there. Maybe he gets so little ice-time because he doesn't ever have that extra shift skating out of the box. Very impressed by Dale Weise, as well.
Here is defense:
| Name | Taken/60 |
| Edler | 0.4 |
| Salo | 0.4 |
| Hamhuis | 0.5 |
| Rome | 0.7 |
| Ballard | 0.9 |
| Bieksa | 0.9 |
| Alberts | 1.3 |
Pretty well as expected. Alex Edler, Sami Salo and Dan Hamhuis don't hurt flies, while Andrew Alberts is a lumbering jerk who can't skate.
Now, as for the Sedins, there is a point of redemption here for Henrik, but not Daniel. Behind The Net also allows us to track which Canucks draw the most penalties. Being the nice guy I am, I organized a "Penalties Drawn to Penalties Taken" ratio which helps:
| Name | Taken/60 | Drawn/60 | D/T Ratio |
| Hodgson | 0.2 | 1.2 | 6.00 |
| Malhotra | 0.6 | 1 | 1.67 |
| Booth | 0.8 | 1.3 | 1.63 |
| Lapierre | 0.9 | 1.3 | 1.44 |
| Burrows | 0.8 | 1.1 | 1.38 |
| Hansen | 1 | 1.3 | 1.30 |
| Higgins | 0.5 | 0.6 | 1.20 |
| H. Sedin | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.92 |
| Weise | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.75 |
| Raymond | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.67 |
| Kesler | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.64 |
| Volpatti | 1.8 | 0.9 | 0.50 |
| D. Sedin | 1.1 | 0.3 | 0.27 |
Hodgson draws a bunch of penalties, as do David Booth, Maxim Lapierre, Jannik Hansen, Alex Burrows and Henrik Sedin. But Daniel Sedin draws the fewest penalties among forwards for some reason. Last season, both twins drew 0.6. I haven't done the leg-work necessary to see if this is a repeatable talent yet, but consider that on the laundry list.
And here is the Canucks' defense rate:
| Name | Taken/60 | Drawn/60 | D/T Ratio |
| Ballard | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.00 |
| Bieksa | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.89 |
| Edler | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.75 |
| Hamhuis | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.60 |
| Alberts | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.54 |
| Salo | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.50 |
| Rome | 0.7 | 0 | 0.00 |
Keith Ballard sends a lot of guys to the penalty box. So do Kevin Bieksa and Andrew Alberts, which makes up for the time they spend in the box, kind of. No Canuck defenseman draws more than they take, but (again, I haven't checked) that's probably consistent for all 30 teams.
So, what have we learned?
1 - Cody Hodgson is a really nice guy.
2 - Daniel Sedin, for some reason, hasn't been drawing penalties this season.
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Great stuff Cam
I would guess Hank draws so many because he always has the puck, and I thought Raymond drew more penalties than he does…
Nuck’s Misconduct Bishop, 1st United Church of Luongod. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Gandhi. I think he was a Canucks fan...
@Vancitydan Writer at Nucks Misconduct
are these
just minor penalties? or do they include fighting majors? misconducts? because obviously we’re a lot more interested in penalties than result in PP or PKs.
difference is probably more important than ratios here, because we’re interested in how many more penalty minutes over 60 minutes players get. they also eliminate the need to having to bother with offsetting minors. or majors, for that matter. i guess you call it… +/- in penalty minutes.
ideally they include non-fighting major penalties but those might just be noisy. not sure. because if a player takes a 5 minute major, it’s indicative of the kind of player he is and he might do it again; but the player on the receiving end of a 5 minute major probably just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. though you might think the sedins might be targets for a lots of guys in the league so it’s unclear. so maybe for symmetry’s sake keeping 5 minute non-fighting majors in is fine, despite the noise.
What matters more than ratio of penalties drawn/taken is the differential between them which is what best determines how much a player is helping or hurting their team. 1.0 per 60 drawn and .5 taken being much better than .4 drawn and .2 taken for example.
I’ve looked at penalty differential for the Habs over the past few years and have some rules of thumb from the trends I’ve noticed but never bothered to put them to the statistical test.
1. Penalties taken and drawn seem to repeat from year to year with fluctuations.
2. Defenseman on average take way more penalties then they draw, average forwards draw slightly more than they take.
3. Defensemen with positive differentials are fairly rare.
4. Players that draw lots of penalties tend to take a relatively large amount of them.
5. The converse isn’t true. There are many players that take large numbers of penalties without drawing many. These tend to be forwards with discipline issues or slower defensemen.
Anyway, looking at it through a differential angle can yield some surprising results. For example, P.K. Subban looks like he has a penalty problem because his penalties taken rate is huge. But his penalty’s drawn rate is likewise huge for a defenseman so in terms of penalty value he’s pretty much an average defenseman. On the other hand, a guy like Hamrlik takes less penalties than Subban, but is in fact a huge liability here because he draws almost nothing.
Writer for http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/
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