Specialty Teams Play
Joe Pelletier has a good article on the best penalty killers in NHL history. Several Red Wings receive recognition. Here’s what he has to say.
Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby in Detroit in the 1990s. Steve Yzerman also deserves credit for being a big part of the Detroit penalty kill in their heyday.
…
…Chris Chelios, Niklas Lidstrom and Al MacInnis were/are regulars on the PK but better known for their offense.
Steve Yzerman ranks 3rd all-time in short-handed goals scored, while Sergei Fedorov ranks 8th. Here are the current special teams stats for the main participants on the power play and the penalty kill. Detroit is currently tied with Los Angeles for the 6th best power play success rate in the league. The Wings are converting 22.2% of their opportunities with the man advantage.
| Player | Goals | PP TOI | PPGF | SHGA | PP+/- |
|
Henrik Zetterberg |
3 | 41:32 | 9 | 2 | +7 |
|
Pavel Datsyuk |
1 | 43:16 | 9 | 2 | +7 |
|
Tomas Holmstrom |
3 | 39:23 | 9 | 2 | +7 |
|
Nick Lidstrom |
0 | 48:37 | 6 | 3 | +3 |
|
Brian Rafalski |
2 | 45:46 | 8 | 2 | +6 |
|
Dan Cleary |
1 | 22:45 | 1 | 0 | +1 |
|
Jiri Hudler |
0 | 19:33 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
|
Mikael Samuelsson |
0 | 14:30 | 0 | 0 | +1 |
|
Niklas Kronvall |
0 | 24:33 | 4 | 1 | +3 |
Thoughts:
-As is to be expected, the top line is making a big impact on the top power play unit.
-Brian Rafalski has made an immediate positive impact on the power play.
-While Kronner hasn’t started to put up big numbers just yet, he’s had a net positive impact. Before the start of the season I wondered what Mike Babcock meant when he talked about Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronvall all playing on the power play. It sounded almost as if he planned on using three defensemen at the same time. It turns out that’s he’s basically rotating three defensemen on the power play. Pairing Kronvall with Rafalski has worked as they were both on the ice for two of Detroit’s last three power play goals.
Detroit ranks 9th as they’ve successfully killed 86.3% of the penalties they’ve taken. Here are the key PK stats for the season thus far:
| Player | SH TOI | SHGA | SHGF |
|
Henrik Zetterberg |
25:16 | 3 | 0 |
|
Kris Draper |
31:37 | 3 | 1 |
|
Kirk Maltby |
25:51 | 1 | 0 |
|
Dan Cleary |
27:30 | 1 | 1 |
|
Valtteri Filppula |
21:16 | 2 | 0 |
|
Nick Lidstrom |
47:47 | 7 | 0 |
|
Chris Chelios |
46:06 | 6 | 0 |
|
Andreas Lilja |
33:32 | 1 | 1 |
|
Niklas Kronvall |
25:15 | 0 | 1 |
Thoughts:
-Lidstrom, Chelios and Draper are playing the hard minutes against the top power play units, and their numbers obviously reflect that.
-Lilja has been decent on the PK. Kronner hasn’t been bad either.
Overall the Red Wings specialty teams have been much improved over how they started the season last year. Much like even-strength play, the one shortcoming is that their second set of forwards hasn’t been much of a scoring threat.
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I have noticed that when Chelios, or Lidstrom are in the box, Lilja fills in on the PK, and does a pretty nice job.
Great Post by the way