The Canucks’ special teams are a mess, but a lot more attention has been paid to just one half of the equation. The power play has received plenty of scrutiny, all of it well-deserved, but the penalty kill seems to have escaped notice.
Perhaps it’s because the penalty kill was so good to start the season. The Canucks allowed just two power play goals in their first five games before a disastrous performance against the Boston Bruins when they allowed four power play goals. But after that bump in the road, the Canucks played five straight games without allowing a power play goal against.
In the last six games, however, opponents are 8-for-25 on the power play, a penalty killing percentage of just 68%. They’ve plummeted down the league ranks in penalty killing efficiency, sitting 23rd in the NHL.
The Canucks seem like a team that can at least break even at even-strength. They’ve been hovering around 50% corsi all season, controlling about half of the shot attempts at 5-on-5. That makes special teams vital, as they could make or break the season.
We’ve seen this already this season, as recently as last game. The Canucks outplayed the Kings at even-strength on Tuesday, but without the power play finally finding its groove and going 2-for-3, the Canucks lose that game. What’s more, the game-winning goal would have been scored by the Kings on the power play thanks to a blatant mistake by the Canucks.
That mistake was made by Bo Horvat, who had position on Anze Kopitar in front, but then left him alone, to take away a less dangerous passing lane.
Horvat made up for the error later with a goal of his own to tie the game, but the Kopitar goal was emblematic of a troubling trend for the Canucks’ top centre: he’s just not very good on the penalty kill.
This has been a continuation of last season, when Horvat was one of the worst penalty-killing forwards in the entire NHL. Only four forwards who played at least 50 minutes shorthanded last season were on for a higher rate of power play goals against and just three forwards allowed a higher rate of shots on goal.
This season, Horvat has been on the ice for the highest rate of unblocked shot attempts when shorthanded on the Canucks.
(Quick note: don't get too excited about Loui Eriksson as a penalty killer just yet: he has the smallest sample size on this chart.)
Unblocked shot attempts (fenwick) is my preferred advanced statistic for special teams, but let’s run through what the above statistics are in the chart. All of the statistics are per 60 minutes of ice time.
- CA - corsi against: shot attempts.
- FA - fenwick against: unblocked shot attempts.
- SA - shots against: shots on goal.
- GA - goals against: y’know, goals.
The median FA/60 for players who have played at least 10 minutes on the penalty kill this season is 76.31. The majority of the Canucks’ penalty killers are below this average, meaning they have been above-average penalty killers this season. But the Canucks have four players that have allowed an above-average rate of unblocked shot attempts when they have been on the ice shorthanded.
Erik Gudbranson and Markus Granlund are the two closest to the median: they haven’t been great, but haven’t been bad enough to really worry about. It’s troubling that these two players, who you might hope would be among the Canucks’ best penalty killers, have been mediocre, but there’s one other thing to keep in mind: each has been most frequently partnered on the penalty kill with one of the players below them on the chart.
Michael Del Zotto and Bo Horvat are a big concern. They not only have the highest FA/60 on the Canucks (and the highest CA/60 and SA/60), they’re among the worst in the league. Horvat and Del Zotto are 29th and 35th, respectively in FA/60 among penalty killers who have played at least 10 minutes shorthanded.
Restrict it further to players who have spent at least 30 minutes on the ice shorthanded and Horvat and Del Zotto are 15th and 19th worst in the NHL.
Horvat’s most frequent forward partner on the penalty kill is Markus Granlund, so there’s a possibility that Horvat is dragging Granlund down in this measure. The same is true of Del Zotto and Gudbranson.
The question is, however, what can the Canucks do about this?
With Chris Tanev out of the lineup, the Canucks need defencemen who can kill penalties. Travis Green doesn’t seem to trust Troy Stecher, Derrick Pouliot, or Alex Biega with penalty-killing duty, so the job falls to the rest of the defence corps, which, by necessity, includes Del Zotto.
If possible, however, it seems like Green should limit Del Zotto’s shorthanded ice time and perhaps consider giving Biega some shorthanded reps or even Stecher when he returns.
As for Horvat, the difficulty in taking him out of the penalty-killing rotation is faceoffs. He and Brandon Sutter take pretty much every single shorthanded faceoff and each have a winning percentage above 50%.
The only other players who might be able to take faceoffs on the penalty kill are Alexander Burmistrov, Markus Granlund, and maybe Brendan Gaunce. Of those three, only Burmistrov is above 50% on faceoffs this season, but has been a sub-50% faceoff man in his career. Also, he hasn’t been able to stay in the lineup this season.
Granlund would seem like a logical choice to take Horvat’s spot, but he’s 14-for-38 on faceoffs this season, an ugly 36.8% winning percentage. Gaunce might be the best option: he hasn’t taken many faceoffs this season, but last season was above 50%. But, like Burmistrov, he’s not consistently in the lineup.
While faceoffs overall are a bit overrated, they’re still an essential part of killing penalties. A won faceoff and a quick clear can kill off large portions of a power play, while a lost faceoff allows the opposition to easily get set up in their power play formation.
Is Horvat’s faceoff ability worth the tradeoff of the rest of his shorthanded struggles?
That’s a hard question to answer. Perhaps the more important question is whether it matters if Horvat struggles now. If the long-term plan is to develop Horvat into a true two-way, all-situations centre, then perhaps he needs this on-the-job training to improve at killing penalties.
