Power Play Efficiency
Here is our power play chart using the adjusted percentages, which calculates actual Power Play Efficiency. Please click here for an explanation of this method.
UPDATED: 01.30.2012
The differences in the adjusted percentage and the standard percentage are usually slight- but as it currently stands, some interpretations can be made:
- Vancouver continues their dominance with the extra attacker as the only team to need less than seven minutes of power play time to score routinely.
- Nashville has crawled their way to have the second best PP unit in the league, yet no player on the team is on pace to reach 30 goals. Incredible.
- Similarly, it seems Phoenix’s power play was better when they were in the same boat in terms of more even team scoring. Coincidentally, now that Vrbata is lighting it up and already has 23 goals, their power play is worst in the league in terms of efficiency. They need just about twice as much time on the power play than Vancouver does to convert.
- Philadelphia gets by far the most time on the power play, and thankfully for them, are rather efficient on it.
- The Rangers have only scored four power play goals since December 12 and have dropped in the rankings considerably because of it.
Would this work on the penalty kill as well? PK goals allowed per 2 minutes? Just wondering, great stuff.
Great question, because as obvious as it is, I haven’t even given it a thought. You are absolutely right, it is the exact same philosophy. I’ll have to come up with another chart.
Hey Crowned,
Sorry I haven’t been here in a long time (but I did remember to wish you a merry Christmas). I did catch your post on Quisps site, and thought I should catch up on some reading. Really great stuff. I changed Computers last season, and lost a lot of sites I posted at. I should start posting here regularly though, the content is really worth reading.
Anyways,
On your Adjusted Power Play numbers, I was wondering how it averages out if the Kings score a goal on 1, at say 30 seconds, and another at say 45 seconds? That would technically give you 2 goals in less than 2 minutes wouldn’t it?
Maybe it should be calculated by total minutes, versus goals scored, and averaged out that way. Or is that the same thing you are doing, but you just use every 2 minutes as the divider?
Thanks for the kind words, Dominick.
That’s pretty much what this chart is doing- because when a team scores at 1 minute or anything under two minutes, the power play is over, and it only needed 1 minute or whatever it was to convert, thus lowering the total amount of time the team has spent on the power play and raising the amount of goals. Thus, the efficiency percentage is raised the quicker and more frequent a team is able to score with the extra man. Because if a team lets an entire two minutes elapse without scoring, their total power play time increases while their goal count stays the same.
So to address your hypothetical scenario, If the Kings have two power plays and score on them both, their standard percentage for those two would be 100%, going 2 for 2. Their efficiency percentage (as I’m now calling it) calculated by goals scored per 2 min of power play time, would actually be 177%, since they actually scored 2 goals in a little over 2 minutes, which technically is really only 1 full power play.
This scenario might be more believable with a team other than the Kings. Thanks for reading.