Is it Possible to Win the Cup with a Bad Power Play?

by Andy Boron on Jan 11, 2010 5:59 PM EST in Crunching Numbers

* Editor's Note: I began researching this story last week, when our power play was still awful, ranked 24th in the league at the time. Of course, as soon as I started writing, the team went on a power play tear. So even though some of the vigor behind the post is gone, it's still a worthwhile topic to explore - that and I did a buttload of research that I'm not flushing down the toilet. All stats are current as of 1/11/10.

Without question, the biggest overall weakness for the Buffalo Sabres has been their power play. The Sabres PP unit is currently humming along at 18% as of this writing, which is good for 16th in the NHL. Every other phase of the game has been excellent, but I've been wondering how much this unreliable power play will really affect the team's chances of making a serious Cup run come playoff time. After much procrastinating, I decided to go stat hunting. I've gathered the numbers from the top four playoff teams in each Conference over the past four seasons (this one included) and have stacked them up to see how they compare; I only chose the top four teams in each Conference because since the lockout, every Cup winner has been a four-seed or higher. This is a purely numerical analysis, there's no discussion of power play strategy or anything, so head over the break for a big spreadsheet (fun!) and some analysis.

For each year, I've taken the top 4 teams in each Conference, ordered them by overall power play ranking, given the conversion percentage of each team, and given the average percentage from that year's Conference finalists for comparison. Cup winners are in italics.

2009-10				2008-09
Team	Power play %	League Rank	Playoff Position	Team	Power play %	League Rank	Playoff Position
Washington Capitals	23.8	2	EC 3	Detroit Red Wings	25.5	1	WC 2
Chicago Blackhawks	21.1	5	WC 1	Washington Capitals	25.2	2	EC 2
New Jersey Devils	20.8	7	EC 1	San Jose Sharks	24.2	3	WC 1
San Jose Sharks	20.1	10	WC 2	Boston Bruins	23.6	4	EC 1
Buffalo Sabres	18	16	EC 2	Chicago Blackhawks	19.3	12	WC 4
Phoenix Coyotes	17.6	18	WC 4	New Jersey Devils	18.9	15	EC 3
Calgary Flames	16.9	22	WC 3	Vancouver Canucks	18.8	17	WC 3
Pittsburgh Penguins	14.7	29	EC 4	Pittsburgh Penguins	17.2	20	EC 4

Final 4 Average				Final 4 Average
Devils (7), Sabres (16), Blackhawks (5), Sharks (10)	20	Would be good for 11th		Wings (1), Blackhawks (12), Penguins (20), Hurricanes (18)	20.2	Would have been good for 9th
2007-08				2006-07
Team	Power play %	League Rank	Playoff Position	Team	Power play %	League Rank	Playoff Position
Montreal Canadiens	24.1	1	EC 1	Anaheim Ducks	22.4	3	WC 2
Detroit Red Wings	20.7	3	WC 1	Ottawa Senators	17.9	14	EC 4
Pittsburgh Penguins	20.4	4	EC 2	New Jersey Devils	17.7	15	EC 2
Minnesota Wild	18.9	7	WC 3	Buffalo Sabres	17.4	17	EC 1
Washington Capitals	18.8	9	EC 3	Nashville Predators	17.4	18	WC 4
San Jose Sharks	18.7	10	WC 2	Vancouver Canucks	17.2	20	WC 3
Anaheim Ducks	16.6	20	WC 4	Detroit Red Wings	17.1	21	WC 1
New Jersey Devils	15.6	25	EC 4	Atlanta Thrashers	16.5	23	EC 3

Final 4 Average				Final 4 Average
Wings (3), Stars (13), Penguins (4), Flyers (2)	20.3	Would have been good for 5th		Sabres (17), Senators (14), Wings (21), Ducks (3)	18.7	Would have been good for 7th

A few things I think are interesting:

- Going into this with very little prior knowledge, I expected these teams to all be in the top 20 just because of their records, but I see a lot of teams in the twenties out there, including Pittsburgh this year at 29.

- Every year is totally different. In 2007-08 the cream of the crop was dominated by top-10 power plays, but the year before that almost every team was in the bottom half of the league, and only one was in the top 10!

- 3 of the 4 Cup winners since the lockout have been ranked 3rd on the power play (Carolina was 3rd in the 2005-06 season, which is not included in the chart.) The other, Pittsburgh, was 20th.

- Power plays are trending towards being more successful. A 20% mark was good for 5th in the league in 2007-08, then 9th a year later, then 11th this year.

So after all that, is a strong power play an absolute necessity to make a serious Cup run? It doesn't appear that way. However, a strong power play is never a bad thing, and it's good that the Sabres have been heating up recently with the man advantage. What are your thoughts?

All stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com

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I will say that the PP isnt a absolute need but it would be a nice added bonus to this team. I also think its more important to teams that base their all around style of play around their offense. For example, I would have to think the PP will be more important to the Caps as opposed to the Sabres. The Caps want to outscore you, whether that means 2-1 or 8-7. Whereas the Sabres, so far this year, looks like they are almost playing to win the games 2-1, 3-2.

Idk if that makes sense… and as I write this I find myself contradicting with my thoughts and think that the PP is important… and it could honestly be the thing holding this team back come April but I would rather have the Sabres concentrate on the PK. I think the PK is more important than the PP.

"Be a wuss at home! Be a man on Rumblings!" - Kurupt

by bflo on Jan 11, 2010 6:19 PM EST reply actions

What are the stats of these teams PP% in the playoffs?

I’m curious as to what happened to these teams once the playoffs began. I think for every good run in the playoffs, a team’s powerplay needs to, at the very least, score timely goals. What happens in the regular season doesn’t matter to me. Getting to the playoffs is only half the battle. There are many ways to get there with 82 regular season games. But in the playoffs, goals don’t come easy and having the man-advantage (or man-power advantage for you Joe Beninnati fans out there, since we are talking about the playoffs) can be huge. So I guess my point is, good post, and hopefully you had some effect on the Sabres PP turnaround. However, I find myself needing more proof to this question about whether a good PP is important to a Cup run.

B-B-B-Byrd Byrd Byrd, Byrd is the Wyrd!"

by willgarr15 on Jan 11, 2010 6:25 PM EST reply actions

I thought about including those stats, but they’re kind of all over the place since the game sample sizes are so small. For example, in the 08-09 playoffs Chicago went from 19.3 % up to 27.9%, while the San Jose Sharks went from 24.2% down to 16.7%.

For the record, all post-lockout Cup champions stayed within 2-3% of their regular season average except Anaheim who went from 22.4% to 15.2%

by Andy Boron on Jan 11, 2010 8:21 PM EST up reply actions

Thank you

B-B-B-Byrd Byrd Byrd, Byrd is the Wyrd!"

by willgarr15 on Jan 12, 2010 4:34 PM EST up reply actions

So long as the PK continues doing its job we'll be fine

Good stuff Andy, you oughta write articles more often.

by Rafal Ladysz on Jan 11, 2010 8:01 PM EST reply actions

numbers can be misleading

It’s always been my belief that you want your team a bit better than 1 of 5, around 18.5% PP and 88% on the PK. A timely PP goal is more important to a team struggling to score goals and find themselves losing 2-1 / 3-2 nightly. Buffalo seems to be digging in and finding ways to win all season thus far and a sub-par PP won’t come into question until they start losing. Besides, what killed them in their most resent playoff appearance wasn’t the lack of PP goals, it was the lack of sustained pressure and players not getting on the same page. Bad turn overs lead to a way too many short handed opportunities. PPs can bring up a lot of momentum as long as everyone works harder with the man advantage and don’t get into a “we have more men on the ice so I’ll just wait for the play to come to me” mentality. I found myself angry at the refs when they were making calls in favor of the Sabres. I’ll be happy as long as I never see that again.

by beachfront on Jan 12, 2010 11:20 AM EST reply actions