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Monday, August 06, 2007

Penner leaves BoC—will his offense go with him?

So in the wake of Dustin Penner’s recent departure to more Oilish pastures, I thought I’d take a brief look today a bit closer at how his on-ice performance last year broke down by opponent.

Similar to what I noted last February about the Sharks’ Jonathan Cheechoo, it appears that Penner greatly increased his scoring rates against BoC opponents compared to his scoring rates against the rest of the league. Penner scored 8 points in 8 games against the Sharks, 7 points in 8 games against the Kings, and 38 points in 87 games against non-BoC opponents. The table below is a simplified version of the findings (regular season + playoffs, broken down by even-strength and power play results):

Opponent

GPES Min.ES G-A-Pts.ES Pts./hrES +/- /hr

BoC

16

180

6-3-9

3.00

+2.33

non-BoC

87

945

17-10-27

1.72

-0.19

OpponentGPPP Min.PP G-A-Pts.PP Pts./hrPP +/- /hr

BoC

16

44

3-3-6

8.12

+14.89

non-BoC

87

270

6-5-11

2.44

+5.11

It’s really an interesting split—BoC opponents represent 16% of Penner’s games played, 28% of his goals-scored, and 28% of his points-scored. And it is worth noting that nearly all his numbers were better against the formidable Sharks than against the pushover Kings (in fact, in 8 games against the Sharks, Penner was not on the ice for a single goal-against).

I don’t think there’s enough here to draw any hard conclusions, but either Penner really got motivated for in-state divisional rivals, or else these two teams specifically had trouble controlling the big body. In either case, it’s probably a good thing for the Sharks and Kings that they figure to see half as much Penner in the coming season as they did last year.

Of course, the real question might be for Penner himself: is it a bad thing for him and the Oilers that he'll see half as much Kings and Sharks as he did last year? Theories are welcome in the comments.

17 comments:

Gautham Ganesan said...

Didn't watch too many Ducks/Kings games, but in the contests I saw between Anaheim and San Jose, the Sharks defense, despite its relative bulk in players like McLaren and Murray, were simply unable to move Penner from the front of the net. It might have been the same story against the Kings, but the blueline presence of one Rob Blake leads me to believe otherwise.

Earl Sleek said...

Yeah, his 6 goals against SJ was twice as many as he got against any other team (playoffs included).

Aside from his 8 points against the Sharks and 7 points against the Kings, the most points he scored against any team was 5 (in 9 games against the Wild). If we exclude playoffs, then the most points he scored against any non-BoC team was 3 (CHI, EDM, NSH, and PHX).

The team that did best against Penner? How about Detroit? 10 games including postseason, zero points.

Just thought I'd offer a little more detail, in case anyone was interested.

Citizen Saint said...

Thanks for the details numbers are pretty interesting.

dbushik said...

Hey so did I miss something? I don't recall Giguerre being inline for surgery. Is this a new development or am I just not paying attention to the minutia of the Ducks and their soprts hernias?

RudyKelly said...

Are you sure this isn't something that can be explained away by small sample size? Do the splits for Getzlaf and Perry also show that they scored more often against the Kings and the Sharks?

Earl Sleek said...

Yeah, dbushik, this was pretty shocking news to me also. When did he get hurt--lifting the cup?

Well, at least we're both in the same boat--I don't think it's the case where we both missed the injury announcement. More likely it's the case that there never was one.

Rick said...

Interesting stat, though I'm not sure what it means.

What will happen to Penner is simple. If he's first line material he'll show up for another 25+G next year in Edmonton, if not, not.

I think....well, I'll put it this way, I'm not drafting him or Souray into my fantasy team this year.

I'm less interested in what he'll do, though, than I am in what the Ducks will do next.

Earl Sleek said...

Do the splits for Getzlaf and Perry also show that they scored more often against the Kings and the Sharks?

Well, the Ducks' power play was really good against the BoC teams, so in PP +/- per hour everyone looks good, but in terms of raw numbers:

Getzlaf vs. BoC: 10 pts in 16 games (.625 pts/gm)
Getzlaf vs. non-BoC: 63 pts in 87 games (.724 pts/gm)

Perry vs. BoC: 7 pts in 16 games (.438 pts/gm)
Perry vs. non-BoC: 52 pts in 87 games (.598 pts/gm)

So in terms of pure points, both Getzlaf and Perry scored better against non-BoC teams than against the Kings&Sharks.

But sure, sample size is always a concern in simple data-splitting like this.

RudyKelly said...

Oh, okay, so it looks like most of his points came on the power play. I'm kind of surprised, because I thought most of his power play goals came on the rebound, and the Kings didn't have many rebounds to give up last year.



(See, because most of them went into the net on the first shot...)

Earl Sleek said...

Yeah, for the record:

Penner vs. Kings
Even Strength: 2 g, 1 a, 3 pts
Power Play: 1 g, 3 a, 4 pts

Penner vs. Sharks
Even Strength: 4 g, 2 a, 6 pts
Power Play: 2 g, 0 a, 2 pts

Nelson said...

Stats from Feb 2nd onwards:

Name: Penner
GP: 30 (82)
+/-: 7 (-2)
Events: 35 (65)
Goals: 12 (29)
Primary assists: 5 (10)
Secondary assists: 1 (6)
Points: 18 (45)

Name: Perry
GP: 30 (82)
+/-: 3 (12)
Events: 32 (92)
Goals: 4 (17)
Primary assists: 7 (17)
Secondary assists: 3 (10)
Points: 14 (44)

Name: Getzlaf
GP: 30 (82)
+/-: 8 (17)
Events: 47 (123)
Goals: 6 (25)
Primary assists: 9 (16)
Secondary assists: 9 (17)
Points: 24 (58)

Penner in the latter part of the year really bumped up his +/-

He was EV+ EV- 15 8 in the last 30 games and 19 24 overall (so 4 16 in the first 52 games at ES)

Earl Sleek said...

good crunching, Voxel.

You probably can check this as well as I can, but I think a fair amount of that turn can be associated with getting a regular spot on the Getzlaf-Perry line (once the Fedoruk and Parros experiments were done).

So is it an improvement in play or an improvement in linemates, or some combination of both? Ah, the trickery that is NHL metrics!

To add a twist, Penner's postseason numbers (when he was a fixture on the kid line) does have a huge gap--the big guy got neither a goal nor an assist in the month of May, which included 10 regulation games as well as some 53 minutes of overtime. Go figure.

Nelson said...

Analyzing ice time for that sub-section is proving way more difficult. These are the games Penner played in:

(Home)
20818
20890
20905
20939
20973
20988
21004
21018
20134
21052
21067
21085
21115
21197

(Away)
20794
20813
20831
20854
20869
20884
20922
20943
20966
21110
21133
21149
21152
21173
21212
21222

For a sample (using http://timeonice.com) - He was with Marchant for the 6-8 or so and Perry + Getzlaf for probably 15 or more... but it's inconsistent inbetween

i.e Game 20922 - has Penner playing with Selanne!

Game 20905 - he's playing with Shannon and Brent. Got an assist.

Nelson said...

Looking at +/- events and ice-time in the 30 games:

Penner (all per 60 - on-ice events - no separating 5v5 from 4v4 etc.)

Events: 5.178
Events+: 3.994
Events-: 1.183
EV+: 2.937
EV-: 1.566
PP+: 16.253
PP-: 0

Getzlaf

Events: 5.297
Events+: 3.719
Events-: 1.578
EV+: 2.348
EV-: 1.264
PP+: 11.71
PP-: 0


Perry

Events: 4.462
Events+: 3.067
Events-: 1.394
EV+: 2.232
EV-: 1.302
PP+: 14.246
PP-: 0

Getzlaf had a single EN event, but it's not significant.

All that shuffling and Penner still has slightly better per/60 numbers than the other two. Softer minutes and reduced ice-time? Penner is not a massive loss to the Ducks because the other two are still very good (I think Getzlaf > Penner).

Earl Sleek said...

Voxel, if you figure out how to present this data well, I'll hire you! (uh, nobody here gets paid or anything).

But still, you're impressing the hell out of me.

(I think Getzlaf > Penner)

Yeah, I think I'm very comfortable saying that. Also, maybe less obvious in the numbers, I'd rather have Perry over the next 5 years than Penner too. I just get the sense that Penner is closer to his peak than Perry is--and over the next few years we may see that development too.

I haven't really spent much time crying over Penner's loss here--Getzlaf and Perry have shown an ability to carry around a brute winger quite adequately (Fedoruk), although I should add that Parros is unhelpable.

Bryan said...

There however are alot more Perrys in the NHL than Penners. Which makes Penner more valuable at the moment than Perry in my opinion. Time will tell. Also you have to remember that Left Wingers have lower point totals than right wingers in general. Luc apparently never got that memo.

Earl Sleek said...

I dunno--Perry's a strange talent. He had the best even-strength numbers of all the kids, and in fact led all Ducks in postseason even-strength scoring (twice as many as Penner).

Penner's size may be rare, but he's still a passenger, and Perry and Getzlaf showed pretty strong numbers with or without him all year (in fact, I think I read that they had better numbers without Penner than with him).

I'd be much more loathe to part with either Getzlaf or Perry--let's not neglect that they were the team's top two postseason point-getters.