Special Teams Action Ratings

Mike Adams | National Hockey League

Nov 5, 02:11 PM | Hype this story!

The season is now a month old, so we can begin to look at some key statistics that have begun to stabilize. One of these is special teams proficiency. To look at this, I devised a formula that takes all special teams activity into account. I call it the Special Teams Action Rating, or STAR.

Computation of the STAR is fairly simple. First, I look at power play percentage, but revise it to include shorthanded goals allowed. For instance, say you go 2 for 6 on the power play, but allow a shorty. Your power play percentage is thus (2-1)/6, or 16.7 percent. Likewise, I compute the penalty kill percentage revised with shorthanded goals scored. So if you kill 4 out of 5, but score a shorty, your penalty kill percentage is (4+1)/5, or 100 percent. I then add the two percentages together to come up with a team’s total rating.

So far this season, the numbers look like this:

Rank Team STAR
1 Montreal 114.6
2 Ottawa 113.4
3 Columbus 112.8
4 Pittsburgh 110.2
5 Dallas 109.5
6 Buffalo 108.7
7 NY Islanders 108.7
8 San Jose 108.0
9 Detroit 106.5
10 Tampa Bay 106.2
11 Florida 103.0
12 NY Rangers 102.1
13 Colorado 101.1
14 Los Angeles 100.8
15 St. Louis 99.0
16 Philadelphia 98.9
17 Chicago 98.3
18 Minnesota 98.0
19 Washington 96.8
20 Vancouver 96.8
21 Carolina 96.6
22 Nashville 96.0
23 Anaheim 94.3
24 Boston 92.6
25 Edmonton 92.4
26 Calgary 89.5
27 Toronto 89.1
28 New Jersey 88.3
29 Phoenix 88.0
30 Atlanta 83.2

Montreal finished last season atop these ratings, and is off to a flying start again this year, despite losing Sheldon Souray off the power play. Perhaps the biggest surprise in this first look is the emergence of Columbus as a special teams powerhouse. Looks like Ken Hitchcock has had an immediate impact on that perennially weak outfit.

At the other end of the spectrum, it appears as though the loss of Scott Neidermayer and Teemu Selanne has hurt Anaheim tremendously. After finishing last year second in the STAR, they have plummeted to 23rd so far this year. Of course, the early-season absence of Mathieu Schneider hasn’t helped in this regard, either. We also see another of last year’s playoff teams, Atlanta is dead last right now in the STAR. These are two teams that will need to pick up the pace if they are to make their way back into the playoff this season. Last year, of the top 16 teams in STAR, 12 made the playoffs. The four playoff teams that were not in the top 16 were NY Islanders (18), Tampa Bay (20), Buffalo (21), and Atlanta (24).

Comments

  1. Johan K

    Nov 5, 03:16 PM

    Interesting stats and an interesting way of doing it. Would be nice to hace 3 columns with PP, PK and totals in a column each.

    Thanks,
    Johan, Sweden

  2. Mike Adams

    Nov 5, 03:50 PM

    Johan, thanks for the suggestion. I will make that change.

  3. Jesse Marshall

    Nov 5, 05:05 PM

    Mike, thanks again for posting. Strange to see Atlanta at the bottom with Kovalchuk/Hossa on the PP.

  4. DaBich

    Nov 6, 07:04 AM

    It’s nice to see Columbus doing something this year. I’d like to see them do even better.

  5. Matt Bodenschatz

    Nov 6, 10:48 AM

    Pascal Leclaire — a young goalie who hadn’t lived up to potential early in his career, has come alive, with 5 shutouts so far. This is exactly why all of the talk of trading Fleury or whatever is ridiculous.

    Good to see Columbus up high and New Jersey down low.

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