Tl;dr – The Coyotes lack of discipline will cost this team 4 points this year, which would really suck if we were still fighting for that last wild card spot.
Full math:
Bored at work, and wanted to quickly quantify the impact of the Coyotes PK rate per game on our overall season standings compared to if we were league average. I only have access to HockeyReference at the moment, so I stuck with only “simple stats” and avoided any formal expected goals models.
After last night, the team currently sits at 27th in the league in PKs per Game, averaging 3.34 per contest. With a PK% currently sitting at 76.33%, the Coyotes are expected to give up 0.79 PP goals per game. Over the course of our 62 games, that ties out to 49 goals against on the PK. So, what would happen to our place in the standings if we only took the league average amount of penalties per game (and killed them at a league average rate)?
On average, NHL teams this season have had 3.10 PKs/Game against a league average 79.2 PK%. This means that the league average expected PP Goals against per game is 0.64 (compared to our 0.79). At a league average rate of PKs and PK%, the Coyotes would be expected to have given up 39.9 goals against on the PK, 9.1 goals less than we currently have.
Prorated for a full season, the Coyotes are expected to give up 64.80 PP goals against / game at our current rate. At league average, this number would only be 52.79, about 12 goals less over 82 games. So what does that imply for points in the standings?
Well, the relationship between Points and Goal Differential is actually very linear on a year-by-year basis:
[The Relationship between Points and Goal Differential](https://preview.redd.it/vgc6e0s9jrmc1.png?width=2700&format=png&auto=webp&s=63f68140566297da526db5ff473f06c8a8b2844f)
For the last 2 seasons, this relationship may be defined with the simple equation:
Total Points = 0.32(Goal Differential) + 91.22
For the purposes of our question, we are primarily concerned in a smaller part of this equation:
Points Gained/Lost Over 82 Games = 0.32 * Goal Differential
Going back to the idea that if we took the league average number of penalties we would save ourselves 12 goals against over the course of the season, this equates to about 4 points lost in the standings (which would be significant if we were fighting for the last playoff spot, but not so significant after the recent slump).
My take away is a few things. First, this admittedly doesnt take into account goals “lost” by losing momentum after giving up a PP goal. We are less likely to score immediately following a PP goal against, so the impact to goal differential would be magnified beyond what is shown here.
Second, as the team emerges from the rebuild and genuinely starts trying to make playoff pushes, a heightened level of team discipline is going to be critical. Keep in mind that this loose analysis is based on league average. Compared to top 10 teams, the points loss starts pushing past 6.
[https://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL\_2024.html](https://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2024.html)
by ThatSpecialAgent
2 Comments
So many are so bad and lazy too. How many too many men penalties have we gotten?
Oddly enough Liam O’Brien hasn’t taken many lately. Hopefully he can teach the rest of the guys.
The amount of penalty minutes is a product of the teams inexperience and overcompensation. For inexperience, the coyotes have the 5th youngest average team age in the league. Lots of these guys are also new to the league and testing limits. As for overcompensation, players like Matt Dumba are trying to kickstart their career again so he is going all out which leads to more penalties being drawn. And O’Brien who wants to be a tough guy draws a lot of penalties by being borderline reckless when he is on the ice. But the real kicker is the frequency of the too many men penalties which shows me that the players aren’t focused much on what the team is doing at all times, but more on what they are to be doing in that moment. Which is also a sign of inexperience. Either they are burning the ship, or trying too hard. Either way, I’m still here throwing hopes into the wind that this franchise can pull out of yet another nosedive.