Combined Power Play and Penalty Kill Percentages Yield Surprising Results

When you add each teams power play percentage to their penalty kill percentage, you get an idea of a team's overall effectiveness in odd man situations.

The league average for power plays is 17.9% and for penalty kill is 82.1%. The two together come to 100% which would be the gauge for whether a team is above or below average compared to others in the league. Sixteen teams are above the 100% level.

In general, you would think the top teams would be the most effective in special team play but that is not necessarily true.

Teams that are in the top half of the ranking that are not currently in the top eight of their conferences include Minnesota (8th-102.4), Ottawa (14th, 100.9), and Calgary (15th, 100.5).

More surprising are the teams that are in the bottom half that are considered to be stronger teams. That list includes Phoenix (28th, 94.3), Nashville (18th, 99.3), and Boston (17th, 99.6).

The true anomalies on the list are Phoenix and Minnesota. The Coyotes are fairly average on the power play (22nd, 16.2%) and near the bottom on the PK (26th, 78.1) but are still in fourth place in the competitive Western Conference.

Minnesota attains its ranking by being in the top ten in both categories: power play (9th, 18.9) and penalty kill (10th, 83.5). Based on this you would expect the Wild to be better than their eleventh place, ten points out of the playoffs position.

Here are the complete rankings...

Team	PP	PK	Total
VAN	24.8	86.5	111.3
DET	22.6	82.9	105.5
T.B.	20.9	83.0	103.9
ANA	22.3	80.9	103.2
S.J.	23.3	79.9	103.2
CHI	24.0	79.1	103.1
L.A.	16.8	85.9	102.7
MIN	18.9	83.5	102.4
MTL	18.5	83.9	102.4
WSH	16.3	86.1	102.4
PIT	15.6	86.2	101.8
BUF	18.5	83.1	101.6
NYR	17.8	83.4	101.2
OTT	16.8	84.1	100.9
CGY	19.0	81.5	100.5
PHI	16.8	83.4	100.2
NHL	17.9	82.1	100
BOS	16.9	82.7	99.6
NSH	14.8	84.5	99.3
NYI	17.2	82.1	99.3
FLA	13.5	85.5	99.0
N.J.	14.9	83.9	98.8
STL	17.4	81.3	98.7
DAL	17.9	80.0	97.9
CAR	15.9	81.0	96.9
ATL	18.5	77.0	95.5
COL	18.9	76.3	95.2
CBJ	13.9	80.7	94.6
PHX	16.2	78.1	94.3
TOR	15.5	77.7	93.2
EDM	12.8	77.1	89.9

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOntheGlass