Carolina Hurricanes Penalty Kill: Do You Feel Lucky
The Carolina Hurricanes Penalty Kill is perfect for November and best in the league to start the season.
Carolina sits atop the NHL in terms of penalty kill percentage after nineteen games. The team boasts an outstanding 92.2 %, and for the month of November, the Carolina Hurricanes are perfect when going a man down. The First Pass blog wrote a great article about the systems used by the
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Hurricanes on their penalty kill. Obviously, the Canes are playing great a man down, but do the stats back up the eye test?
Penalty Kill Overview
The Hurricanes went a man down 51 times the so far this season. That ties them with the Columbus Blue Jackets for first in the NHL. Not only are the Hurricanes great on the Penalty Kill, but they are also really good at not putting themselves in the box. This is another important reason that the Canes PK is as good as it is. Here is a look at the ice time of every Hurricane to play more than a minute on the PK.
| Player | PK TOI |
|---|---|
| Jaccob Slavin | 59:05 |
| Ron Hainsey | 54.59 |
| Brett Pesce | 43:01 |
| Jay McClement | 37:11 |
| Joakim Nordstrom | 36:10 |
| Jordan Staal | 35.13 |
| Elias Lindhom | 28:09 |
| Viktor Stalberg | 27:29 |
| Justin Faulk | 24:30 |
| Victor Rask | 12:03 |
| Brock McGinn | 5:35 |
The Hurricanes consistently put out the same people when it comes time to kill a penalty. Unlike his 5v5 lines, Peters doesn’t really shuffle these as much but then again the PK is on a roll. The last time an opponent scored with the man advantage was October 30th. Since then the Hurricanes have played perfectly on the kill. Is the dramatic increase due to the Hurricanes actually playing better in November, or is there another reason? The stats have a pretty clear answer to that.
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Killing Me Softly in November
Look at the Hurricanes PK stats for the month of October. All stats sourced from Corsica.
| Stat | Value | NHL Rank |
|---|---|---|
| xGA60 | 6.90 | 21st |
| SCA60 | 26.87 | 24th |
| GA60 | 5.12 | 11th |
| SA60 | 44.78 | 25th |
| PDO | 88.89 | 25th |
While those are all right defensive metrics, nothing really stands out as amazing. If PDO is a new stat for our readers here and here have some great articles on what it is and what it describes. To make it simple, PDO measures luck. If it is higher the team is luckier, and lower means unlucky in a nutshell. The PDO is extremely low, and spoiler alert, keep an eye out for it in the November PK stats.
| Stat | Value | NHL Rank |
|---|---|---|
| xGA60 | 6.29 | 17th |
| SCA60 | 27.94 | 25th |
| GA60 | 0 | 1st |
| SA60 | 48.58 | 19th |
| PDO | 122.22 | 2nd |
As the table shows the difference in the amount and quality of shots the Carolina Hurricanes gave up between October and November really isn’t all that big. With some metrics, the Hurricanes played even worse; both scoring chances against and shots against are higher in November than October. But look at that PDO on the kill. In one month it rockets up from one of the unluckiest in the league to number 2 overall.
What Does It All Mean?
Have you ever heard the phrase, “It better to be lucky than good,” because in November that was the Carolina Hurricanes’ motto. With no great decrease in the amount or quality of shots against the Hurricanes penalty killers, it seems Carolina is getting a lot of luck in their streak of kills. Some of that is due to the improved play of Cam Ward. A lot of it is teams just aren’t’ finding the back of the net. As the season progresses it’s not a question of if but when will the Hurricanes start scoring on the man advantage. How steep the drop will be is the only thing really left up for discussion.