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Edmonton Oilers' inability to draw penalties is as puzzling as it is persistent

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Game Day 23: Oilers at Sabres

The first measure of special teams efficiency in the NHL is done by percentages. What is the conversion rate of the powerplay? What is the success rate of the penalty kill? Add the two together and if the combined percentages are north of 100, that’s pretty solid.

Or it would be, on the dangerous assumption that the number of opportunities are roughly equal for both units. But that has not been the case for the Edmonton Oilers this season, and especially this month when they have beaten a path to the sin bin at a rate nearly double that of their opposition.

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By the first measure, the Oilers special teams are doing well. Over the last 10 games — from the first Detroit game to the second — the Oilers have converted 31.6% of their powerplay opportunities, third best in the NHL in that span. Their 79.4% kill rate is less good at 19th, but somewhere near the middle of the pack. Add up those two rates, though, and the resulting “Bowman Index” is 111, very good indeed.

One problem, though. In those same 10 games the Oilers have scored just 6 powerplay goals and allowed 7 for a net -1. That’s a direct result of a mammoth differential in opportunities: just 19 for Edmonton, 34 for the other guys. Indeed, you have to go all the way back to the first Red Wings game to find a game where the Oilers so much as broke even in the opportunities department. Since then, it’s been nine (9) consecutive games where the Oil have taken more penalties than they’ve drawn. It’s an odd run to say the least, especially in a league with a long standing reputation for evening things up. Hasn’t been happening.

One might think that taking extra penalties is just a cost of doing business for the “heavy hockey” favoured by Oilers’ GM Peter Chiarelli, but one would only be partially correct. Indeed, penalties taken isn’t the problem: the Oilers rank 15th in the NHL at 3.41 powerplays against per game, a shade below the league average of 3.46 to this point. Not quite as good as last year, when Edmonton took the fifth fewest penalties in the league (I am considering only powerplay-causing infractions and ignoring coincidentals, fighting majors, misconducts etc.) 

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The bigger shortfall is happening on the penalties drawn side of the equation. The Oilers currently rank dead last in the NHL with just 58 powerplay opportunities in 22 games, just 2.63 per game. Only one other team, Columbus Blue Jackets, is south of 3 chances a game. Oddly, in a season that has seen powerplay chances increase by 16% over last season, the Oilers’ rate of opportunities has declined by 12%. 

Part of this can be ascribed to change of personnel, notably Jordan Eberle whose penalty differential of +12 last season was second most on the team. Another frequent contributor was Benoit Pouliot, who lines up on the other side of the ice tonight. Pouliot drew about as many penalties as he took himself (high event on both sides of the whistle) throughout his time in Edmonton.

But one player who hasn’t gone anywhere is Connor McDavid, who last season drew 53 penalties with a net penalty differential of +40 to lead the league by a significant margin in both departments. That’s nearly 2 powerplays every 3 games drawn by that player, as opponents were consistently challenged to thwart the speedster by whatever means possible. This season? Not so much. McDavid has drawn just 8 penalties and has a net differential of +4, neither of which ranks even in the top 40 in the NHL according to the source (Corsica Hockey).

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Over at The Athletic, Tyler Dellow took a more global look at penalties drawn and taken across the entire league, breaking down types of penalties into broad categories: primarily obstruction and aggression. He noted McDavid had drawn 38 obstruction penalties last season, 10 more than any other NHLer (Johnny Gaudreau drew 28). But in looking at early season results through last weekend, Dellow wrote:

“McDavid’s numbers are way off though – he’s on pace for about 20 obstruction penalties drawn, which is hard to understand. There’s probably been some reclassification of penalties that might have been called obstruction last year as slashing this year. He’s on pace for about seven extra aggression penalties this year as compared to last year. It’s still a big group of calls that seems to have disappeared for him.” 
Source. (Paywall warning)

I’ve been following this issue on a parallel track for some time, albeit with my customary Oilercentric focus. Looking specifically to the last 10 games on the team level, the Oilers have taken 19 obstruction penalties and drawn just 10. They have also taken 11 aggression-type penalties and drawn just 6. (I’ve included slashing in the aggression category, even as that particular infraction is more in a grey area, being more often a check gone wrong than a vicious two-hander.) Add in a 4-3 disadvantage in technical penalties such as puck-over-glass and too-many-men, and the overall margin has been 34-19 against. A powerplay and a half per game.

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The big question is, what to do about it? Normally taciturn on such matters, Todd McLellan has been seen having serious discussions with the referees in recent games after calls or more often non-calls didn’t go his team’s way. One wonders when he will up the ante by clearing his throat on the subject in a media avail, but it hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge. As for the advice he might be giving his team, the old platitudes apply: keep your feet moving, fight through checks, and oh yeah, take a dive once in a while.

The worm is bound to turn sooner or later. Mind you, I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks now…

Tonight’s line-up

The flu bug that has been rippling through the club currently affects Cam Talbot and Oscar Klefbom. The workhorse netminder will get just his third rest of the season while Laurent Brossoit gets a turn. Normally L.B. would have started one of the back-to-backs earlier this week, but wound up getting the better part of a full game in relief in St. Louis. An argument could have been made he’d get this start in any event, but Talbot’s illness makes the decision a lot more straightforward. Expect Brossoit to finish the game no matter what, bearing in mind that the last time Talbot came on in relief even when healthy was back in the 2015-16 season.

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The issue with Klefbom dates back a week, when he first missed practice along with McDavid last Friday. McDavid’s illness and loss of 5-10 pounds has been well-documented and presented (with cause) as a contributing factor to the phenom’s defensive woes in recent times. Klefbom has had a few defensive woes of his own to say the least; maybe he too deserves a bit of latitude, at least for the most recent stretch. The NHL is a tough enough league at full energy and ventilation, especially for minute-munchers like McDavid and Klefbom. 

Ideally the squad ices the same 18 skaters that thumped the Red Wings on Wednesday. The forward lines are confirmed to stay the same; if Klefbom can’t go, Eric Gryba will draw in with Kris Russell sliding over to the left side, even as the coach has a couple of options as to how to deploy his bottom four. Best bet: Russell-Benning / Auvitu-Gryba. That said, McLellan’s first choice will always be to keep Klefbom in the line-up if possible.

Edmonton faces a struggling Sabres squad that has lost seven straight. That said, the home team should be desperate for a win; the same certainly applies to the Oilers themselves who have no reason to take any game or opponent lightly at this point. Key for the visitors will be a similar team focus in Buffalo that they got in Detroit the other night, where all four lines and all three defence pairs contributed. The surge of depth scoring was particularly welcome, with more 5v5 goals scored by the bottom six in that game (3) than in the previous 21 combined (2). More, please.

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While the long-term nature of the current flu bug is a concern, Oilers fans can only hope that they’ll see Connor McDavid at something closer to 100%. It can hardly be a coincidence that in the last five games his ice time has been slashed by fully 20%, from 22:38 a night previously to just 18:04 since. Part of that is a run of one-sided games — all five have been decided by 3+ goals so no need for double-shifting down the stretch. But to these eyes it’s been longer than that since the phenom has seized a game by the throat as only he can. That’s apt to change as he gets healthier. Maybe he can even draw a penalty or two along the way.  

Recently at the Cult of Hockey

STAPLES: Caggiula putting in his claim to be McDavid’s right winger

STAPLES: Shots fired! Oilers farm system blasted from within. What does it mean?

STAPLES: Lucic and Nurse grade highest as Oilers beat Detroit

STAPLES: Craig Button points finger at Chiarelli

McCURDY: Oilers early-game struggles are costing them dearly

Follow me on Twitter @BruceMcCurdy

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