Penalty Killing Me
The Avs’ penalty kill as a whole has been pretty abysmal overall. They are 28th in the league in successful penalty kills with 77.2%. The only teams worse than the Avs are Edmonton, LA, and Chicago. All 3 of which are doing worse than the Avs overall as well. But the thing about the Avs is that they have had the most penalty kills in the league. They lead the league in short handed opportunities given with 237. The next closest is Washington with 219. That’s a total of 18 more penalties given so far this season. The worst PK team in the league (LA Kings) are 18th with 192. Edmonton in 13th with 202 and Chicago is in 21st with 191. Not only are the Avs the worst at taking penalties but they also have the most PK goals against in the league with 54. Chicago with 52, Edmonton with 50, and LA with 48 (all the bottom 4).
Needless to say, the Avs are really struggling in that department. It has been a constant concern this season and has been the deciding factor in a lot of games. In the 20 one goal losses by the Avalanche this season, 15 of those games had PP goals from their opponent. That is a 75% loss rate, which is pretty abysmal. There are a couple things that we can attribute to this shortcoming of the 2018-2019 Avalanche.
Systems:
System is a hard one to nail down since it changes from time to time and the personnel used can also affect which systems are used. Overall its been mostly the same which we can explore. The Av’s PK does a great job at limiting shots from the point to the left of the goalie and straight on. They also do a good job at limiting the chances in the slot. Right in front of the goalie they struggle a bit (rebounds) but a lot of teams do, its something you will see across most teams. The majority of shots against come from the bottom of the circle to the let of the goalie and most areas on the left. According to Figure 1, we can show that the PK units tend to force the puck to the right of the goalie, and this is done for a reason. This allows Varly and Grubauer to have good angles on the shooters. When the shooter is to the right of the net, this blocks off most of the blocker side of the net and leaves the appealing shot placement to be on their glove side. Glove range of motion is better and catching the puck causes a stoppage in play. that allows the penalty killers to rest a bit. The system itself is sound and logical. Theoretically, this plays to the strength of the goalies more and therefore to PK success. That hasn’t been the case though.
Their system and intention was the same last season according to Figure 2. However, last season, they were 4th in penalty kills with 83.3% and they still were 7th worse in short handed opportunities given with 269 and only 45 short handed goals against.
So this would point to the fact that the system isn’t necessarily the problem. They were so successful with it last year, so why not this year? Granted, these stats don’t tell the whole picture. It doesn’t show quality of shots, opposition shot on net placement, etc. There are a lot of factors but this tells an interesting story. The systems are relatively similar in their goal, but their results are so vastly different. The first thing that comes to mind would be that the goaltenders aren’t doing their job in this system.
Goaltenders:
Varlamov has had a short handed save percentage of .870 this season. Last season (when they were very successful), he had a save percentage of .907. A sizable difference to be frank. So far with 246 shots against this season, Varlamov has allowed 32 goals. Last year with the same shots against all season, he stopped only 23. That is a whole 9 more goals against. And going back to the fact that 15 one goal games were lost due to penalty kills, this could put the Avs up 18 more points in the standings (ideally, though they wouldn’t all come in one goal games).
Grubauer has been even worse. His short handed save percentage is an laughable .824. Though he has never been great at penalty kills. Last season his short handed save percentage with Washington was only .870 who were 9th in PK success last season.
Both goalies are obviously struggling in this aspect this season and have been a general story of concern this whole season. Their performance has been lackluster as a whole but notably so on the penalty kill. The top PK teams’ goaltenders are averaging at around .910 and up. Now obviously this is somewhat of an unfair stat to use for goaltenders because obviously if a penalty kill was unsuccessful, that means a goal against and a lower save percentage, but it is still something to keep in mind. The next thought to consider would be that the penalty killing units themselves aren’t doing a great job to help the goalies.
Players:
In Figure 3, you can see the Penalty Kill Network of players used. The most used defensemen are Nemeth, Johnson, and Cole with Zadorov being used a bit as well. The most used forwards are Soderberg, Nieto, and Calvert with Compher playing a good amount as well. Nemeth and Cole’s stengths are defense so logically they are good players to use on the PK. EJ is also your best defensemen on the team and has some skill on defense as well so using him is great. Soderberg has been in a shutdown role his whole time in Colorado as well as Nieto. Both have done fairly well with no better options on the team. Calvert however is the outlier in the primary penalty killers. His experience in penalty killing is razor thin. In his time in Columbus he rarely killed penalties and that fact is evident when watching him play short handed. But you cant attribute it all to Calvert. Nieto also isn’t a high skill guy, though penalty killers usually aren’t on most teams. So the personnel at a glace isnt great, but there is also no serious cause for concern. On paper this seams like a middle of the pack penalty kill overall.
Cole, Nemeth, and Johnson all have been helping Varly with some high danger shots. They each are in the top 10 in short handed blocked shots. No other team has 2 in the top 10 and Dallas and Vegas are the only teams with 2 in the top 20. So obviously the team has been trying hard to help their goalies out. This can be viewed as both a good thing and a bad thing. We have no stats to track whether or some some of the goals were tipped by an Avs player or not so that could be an attributing factor to watch out for going forward. Maybe the players don’t have trust in their goalies and feel like they have to do it themselves which lead to bad decisions and goals against.
A big part of helping the goalies is getting the puck out of the zone. The only Av in the top 20 of short handed takeaways is surprisingly Calvert with 10. However, he has about 40 to 60 more minutes played than those around him. So this could be something that is important to improve, though the Av’s penalty kill system is pretty passive. They focus on limiting shots and forcing players where they want them, than an aggressive penalty kill. The top penalty kill in Tampa Bay has no one in the top 30 in this stat at all so this fact is pretty empty for or against.
The players used over the course of the season has changed a lot, as is visible in Figure 4. Compher and Calvert have gotten more of a prominent role as of late and Nieto is getting phased out more and more, though Soderberg has consistently been used a lot.
There is more to explore and take in to consideration than just stats and charts, obviously. The Penalty Kill has been a rough spot for everyone. Fans, players, and coaches alike. Finding the right guys to execute this system should be a priority for the rest of this season. Hammering the PK as a whole should also be a focus over the off season. They either need to decide to change the system as a whole or they need to work hard to hammer this system’s kinks out. The goaltending needs to improve, the execution of the system needs to be better (if they stick with it) and the Avs need to find or develop players that can successfully buy in and execute correctly. The system in theory works and has worked in the past, even with sub par personnel. But there needs to be some drastic change somewhere to get it working again. PK is an important part of a contender, and until they don’t have a bottom 5 PK, the Avs are going to struggle.
