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What a difference a game makes!
After Game 4, a solid case could have been made for Pittsburgh having the upper hand against the tired looking Red Wings, even with home ice advantage still residing with Detroit.
The hockey community went into Game 5 asking what the Red Wings needed to do to change the momentum of the series. “Get a healthy Pavel Datsyuk” just seemed like too easy of a solution, too good to be true, since there were legitimate concerns whether the Hart Trophy finalist would be healthy and productive. Even before his injury, Datsyuk had been surprisingly ineffective compared to the lofty standards he had set over the past several seasons. Remember how Marian Hossa was more effective playing without him than with him this postseason?
A healthy and productive Pavel Datsyuk changes everything.
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For a change, Detroit’s rickety power play defense did not cost them in Game 5, both due to suddenly efficient penalty killing and excellent discipline in staying out of the sin bin. In addition to Datsyuk’s return, minimizing the number and quality of Pittsburgh’s man advantage situations was the key to getting ahead in the contest.
That said, while Detroit and Pittsburgh have been the two least penalized teams of the playoffs, it seems like any penalty can be kryptonite to the otherwise invulnerable Wings. This is apparent when we look at the number of power play goals scored against each team compared to the number of non-power play goals (ESG, SHG, ENG) against them:
Pittsburgh and Detroit – Percentage of power play and non-power play goals against
Pittsburgh Penguins Detroit Red Wings
Game PPGA non-PPGA PPGA non-PPGA
1 1 0 0 1
2 1 1 0 0
3 1 5 1 0
4 0 1 2 3
5 0 3 1 1
6 1 2 2 2
7 1 2 1 1
8 1 3 1 2
9 1 1 1 0
10 0 3 1 1
11 1 2 1 2
12 1 4 1 1
13 0 2 1 1
14 1 1 1 3
15 0 4 1 0
16 0 2 0 1
17 0 1 0 1
18 0 3 1 0
19 0 3 2 2
20 1 1 1 3
21 0 2 0 0
22 3 2
Total 14 48 %PPGA: 22.6% 19 25 %PPGA: 43.2%
The difference between the Penguins and the Red Wings is stark; Pittsburgh has allowed almost twice as many non-PPGA as Detroit, while the Red Wings have given up nearly 50% more PPGA than the Penguins. In fact, before the somewhat skewed Game 5, the difference in PPGA was 11 to 19, nearly double. Therefore, the outcomes of Game 6 and Game 7–if necessary–may simply come down to what percentage of play is contested at even strength and on the power play. If we are to give credence to this postseason’s sample of a couple of dozen games, the Red Wings must stay out of the penalty box; trading penalties with Pittsburgh may be the only way they could lose the series.
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Conversely, the Penguins need to find a way to get the Red Wings in the penalty box. Drawing penalties calls for players to gain an advantage through superior speed or skill or extra effort, that forces their opponents to stop them by any means possible. By far the best Penguin at drawing penalties over the course of the regular season was Evgeni Malkin, drawing 2.1 penalties per 60 minutes of even strength ice time, or essentially one per game given twenty plus minutes of ESTOI. The table below shows how the other Pittsburgh skaters ranked:
Pittsburgh Penguins – Penalties drawn per 60 minutes of ESTOI
Name Pos TOI/60 Drawn Drawn/60
Evgeni Malkin C 15.03 43 2.1
Pascal Dupuis L 11.04 20 1.5
Sidney Crosby C 14.83 26 1.4
Matt Cooke C 12.00 19 1.3
Tyler Kennedy C 12.06 18 1.3
Jordan Staal C 13.20 19 1.1
Ruslan Fedotenko L 12.16 14 1.1
Maxime Talbot C 10.70 14 1.0
Craig Adams R 7.71 6 1.0
Chris Kunitz L 13.26 19 1.0
Bill Guerin R 12.38 13 0.8
Kris Letang D 15.31 16 0.8
Miroslav Satan R 12.53 9 0.7
Brooks Orpik D 16.42 16 0.7
Alex Golgoski D 13.59 7 0.7
Petr Sykora R 12.39 7 0.4
Hall Gill D 14.33 4 0.3
Mark Eaton D 13.78 3 0.2
Philippe Boucher D 15.19 1 0.1
Rob Scuderi D 14.61 0 0.0
A special thanks to www.behindthenet.ca for the statistics provided above
Sidney Crosby, of course, was among the Penguins leaders as well with 1.4/60, but lesser lights like Pascal Dupuis, Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy have a knack for drawing penalties as well, supporting Dan Bylsma’s use of them. While Pittsburgh will rely on these players in particular to create power play opportunities, expect an emphasis on pushing the play from the entire lineup, with an eye on drawing the man advantage, crucial for defeating the Red Wings.
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Detroit delivered an ominously low of 17 hits in Game 3, prompting concerns of their wearing down, a prophecy which seemed to be fulfilled in Game 4. Detroit’s physicality returned with a vengeance in Game 5, with the Wings dishing out 42 hits on the Penguins. Admittedly, the game had 20+ minutes worth of garbage time, with not much else worthwhile to do other than to tenderize your opponent in preparation for Game 6.
We know who has been leading the hit parade for the respective teams – Darren Helm, Dan Cleary and Brad Stuart for the Red Wings, and Brooks Orpik, Matt Cooke, Chris Kunitz and Evgeni Malkin for the Penguins. What’s not often tracked is who is taking the hits, which is important to figuring out who is starting to get heavy legs at this point in the long campaign.
Detroit Red Wings – Hits taken in the Stanley Cup finals
Player Pos GP Hits Hit/Gm Gm1 Gm2 Gm3 Gm4 Gm5
Darren Helm C 5 19 3.8 2 4 4 5 4
Brad Stuart D 5 18 3.6 5 4 3 3 3
Henrik Zetterberg L 5 17 3.4 6 2 5 1 3
Brian Rafalski D 5 14 2.8 2 2 3 4 3
Dan Cleary R 5 13 2.6 3 4 1 3 2
Marian Hossa R 5 13 2.6 2 1 4 2 4
Niklas Kronwall D 5 11 2.2 3 1 2 3 2
Pavel Datsyuk C 1 2 2.0 - - - - 2
Nicklas Lidstrom D 5 10 2.0 2 1 0 5 2
Kirk Maltby L 5 9 1.8 2 3 2 0 2
Tomas Holmstrom L 5 8 1.6 1 1 3 1 2
Ville Leino L 4 6 1.5 2 2 1 1 -
Johan Franzen C 5 7 1.4 3 1 3 0 0
Valtteri Filppula C 5 7 1.4 1 2 2 1 1
Justin Abdelkader L 3 4 1.3 2 1 1 - -
Mikael Samuelsson R 5 6 1.2 0 2 1 1 2
Jonathan Ericsson D 5 5 1.0 0 1 1 2 1
Kris Draper C 2 2 1.0 - - - 0 2
Brett Lebda D 5 4 0.8 3 1 0 0 0
Jiri Hudler C 5 1 0.2 0 1 0 0 0
Totals – Detroit 90 176 1.96 39 34 36 32 35
Those who do the hitting often receive hits as well, therefore it’s not surprising to see Helm, Stuart and Cleary at the top of the list of Red Wings being hit. The other notable name is Henrik Zetterberg, who drew 6 hits in Game 1 and 5 hits in Game 3. It makes perfect sense for the Penguins to target last year’s Conn Smythe Trophy winner…so why did they forget about him in Games 4 and 5? The commitment to take the body on other key skill players has been intermittent as well:
- 40-goal man Marian Hossa received only 3 hits in the first two games.
- Captain Nicklas Lidstrom was only hit 3 times in Games 1-3, though he was coming off injury.
- Returning from surgery, Jonathan Ericsson has only averaged one hit received per game.
- Hart and Selke Trophy finalist Pavel Datsyuk was only hit twice after returning in Game 5.
- Potential Conn Smythe winner Johan Franzen has been untouched in the past two games.
It may be too late for the Penguins to sharpen their focus on who they are hitting, to reap the rewards. Instead of softening up Zetterberg, Lidstrom and Franzen, they have wasted considerable energy trading blows with the likes of Helm and Stuart instead.
Pittsburgh Penguins – Hits taken in the Stanley Cup finals
Player Pos GP Hits Hit/Gm Gm1 Gm2 Gm3 Gm4 Gm5
Sergei Gonchar D 5 17 3.4 3 6 2 2 4
Maxime Talbot C 5 16 3.2 6 1 2 4 3
Brooks Orpik D 5 15 3.0 3 4 1 3 4
Evgeni Malkin C 5 15 3.0 4 2 1 3 5
Kris Letang D 5 12 2.4 2 3 0 3 4
Chris Kunitz L 5 11 2.2 4 1 0 3 3
Bill Guerin R 5 10 2.0 3 2 1 2 2
Ruslan Fedotenko L 5 9 1.8 2 0 2 1 4
Tyler Kennedy C 5 9 1.8 3 1 2 1 2
Matt Cooke L 5 8 1.6 2 2 1 1 2
Sidney Crosby C 5 8 1.6 1 1 1 2 3
Mark Eaton D 5 8 1.6 2 4 0 1 1
Jordan Staal C 5 7 1.4 1 2 1 2 1
Pascal Dupuis L 4 5 1.3 - 3 1 0 1
Rob Scuderi D 5 6 1.2 4 0 0 1 1
Hal Gill D 5 5 1.0 1 0 1 1 2
Philippe Boucher D 1 1 1.0 1 - - - -
Craig Adams R 5 4 0.8 1 0 1 2 0
Miroslav Satan R 5 2 0.4 0 1 0 1 0
Totals - Pittsburgh 90 168 1.87 43 33 17 33 42
Two of the Penguins’ top three players, based on GVT, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin, have taken a heavy share of the Detroit hitting. Curiously, Sidney Crosby has avoided receiving Detroit hits for the most part. Is Sid the Kid too elusive to be hit, is he avoiding contact or is the “golden boy” off limits?
The Red Wings would make the most effective use of their hitting by targeting only Crosby, Malkin and Gonchar, and taking the body on the other Pens opportunistically.
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The mainstream media is breaking out its statistical chops, pointing out that 14 of the last 19 teams to go up 3-2 in the Stanley Cup finals have gone on to win the championship.
Here’s an experiment to try at home for extra credit: Try flipping two coins 19 times and see how many times at least one of the coins comes up heads. Did you get 14, or maybe 13 or 15?
For two evenly matched teams, the expected rate of winning two games in a row is 75%, of course–and voila!–over the last nineteen such cases, 74% teams have gone on to win it from the 3-2 advantage. It’s statistical magic!
Timo Seppa is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Timo by clicking here or click here to see Timo's other articles.
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