New York Rangers: The real reason the penalty kill is so bad

The New York Rangers penalty kill has taken a big hit in the last week, allowing eight goals the last 15 times shorthanded.  Taking a deeper look, there’s a simple explanation why.

The New York Rangers have allowed power play goals in five straight games and have been successful only 11 of their last 21 times shorthanded.  Tampa scored five power play goals in one game against the Blueshirts last week.  That’s pretty awful.

They did better in beating Washington Wednesday night,  but still had a success rate of only 66%.  While many are blaming it on the incompetence of Lindy Ruff, when you look at the goals they have allowed, the reason becomes obvious.

First, let’s let David Quinn eloquently give one big reason why they have had lousy penalty kill success.  He put is very simply, “they had five (players) and we had four.”  It’s the very nature of the man advantage and it just so happened that in four of their last five games they Rangers played teams with excellent power plays. Tampa is second in the NHL and they scored five times.  Florida is fourth in the NHL and they scored three goals.  Washington is fifth and they scored once.  When you give good teams power play opportunities, they will take advantage.

The real reason

But there is a much bigger issue that is causing the Rangers’ mediocre penalty kill.  It’s faceoffs.  The Rangers have allowed 20 power play goals this season. I looked at each of those 20 goals to see the circumstances that led to them being scored.

On 14 of the goals, the Rangers lost the faceoff in the defensive zone that preceded the goal being scored.  On three of those goals, the Rangers won the draw, but never got the puck out of their zone.  That’s 17 out of 20 goals scored after a defensive zone draw that was ultimately lost by the Rangers.

Half of the power play goals scored came within 30 seconds of a lost defensive zone faceoff.  The Tampa debacle is a great example. The Lightning won 57% of all faceoffs that game, but were deadly on power play draws.  They scored within :05, :06, :12, :14 and :35 seconds of winning the draw.  It was merciless.  Win the draw, take the shot.  Score.

Here are the culprits this season. Ryan Strome has won two draws and lost seven in the defensive zone that led directly to power play goals.  On one of the two wins, the Rangers coughed up the puck.

Brett Howden has lost three of four faceoffs that preceded goals.  The one draw he won, the Rangers got the puck out of the zone and went on the offense, but Ottawa’s Vlad Namestnikov got a breakaway and scored on an odd man rush.

Mika Zibanejad won two faceoffs and lost three with one win ultimately a lost puck.

Lias Andersson won the only defensive zone draw he took that preceded a goal.  In that case they got the puck out of their zone, but Florida turned it right around and scored.

Quinn talked about those quick goals in Tampa after practice this week. “Three of their five power play goals were off the faceoff. Literally they have a faceoff and they would score a goal seconds later so it really wasn’t so much structure, it was overreacting on the faceoff.”

I would argue that it wasn’t any kind of overreaction, it was a clean loss on the draw that led to the point shot that resulted in a goal just seconds later.

Why are they so bad?

This is one area where the loss of Mika Zibanejadis has hurt.  Last season, Zibanejad won 48.4% of his shorthanded draws. Brett Howden was next at 41.5% and Ryan Strome was third at 37.2%.

This season, the results are pretty awful except for Brett Howden who is at 56.1% on 41 draws.  Zibanejad has won 38.2% of his 34 shorthanded faceoffs.   Strome has been pretty bad, winning 30.6% of his 36 faceoffs.

There is one other reason why the Rangers are having trouble.  That’s the new rule adopted by the NHL this season allowing the offensive team to have the choice of which end zone dot the face-off will take place.  It could be a reason why Zibanejad’s numbers are down.

Face it, the Rangers stink on draws.   Overall, they win 47.2% of their faceoffs, putting them in 29th place overall. A man down, that number drops to 42%.  They’ve had some awful performances this season and when it comes the penalty kill, it’s clearly affecting outcomes.

Perhaps it’s time to stop talking about defensive zone structure and working on the basics and focus on one of the most basic skills of all, winning faceoffs.