Rafalski’s penalty stats
The Forechecker left me a comment on a recent post saying not to worry too much about the Wings’ new defenseman, Brian Rafalski, who had the most turnovers on the Devils’ squad. His reasoning?
I wouldn’t sweat the turnover number, as those are notoriously unreliable and more of an indicator that he plays a ton and has the puck on his stick a lot. A nice “bonus†with Rafalski is that he plays 20+ minutes of solid defense without taking very many penalties, in fact ranking among the league leaders in that category.
He even takes fewer minor penalties relative to his ice time than Nick Lidstrom. Staying out of the box is one of the more underrated ways of helping your team win.
On the Forecheck did all the statistical work for us and looked at the number of minor penalties taken by defenseman in the NHL. Why?
One way to shed a little more light on the play of defensemen is to examine how many minor penalties they take relative to their ice time. For example, if two stalwarts play twenty a minutes a game, but one takes twice as many minor penalties (leaving his teammates shorthanded) as the other, surely the player who commits fewer fouls is a greater help to his team, all other factors being equal. Sergei Gonchar, for example, has led the league two years in a row in Hooking calls, but if a goal gets scored while he’s sitting in the box, his plus/minus doesn’t take a hit.
According to On the Forecheck, Rafalski averaged 25:29 minutes of ice time every game and only received 17 minor penalties in the 82 regular season games. Fellow Wings’ defenseman and captain, Nick Lidstrom, played in 80 games averaging 27:29 minutes and earning 23 minor penalties.
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3 Responses to “Rafalski’s penalty stats”
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July 6th, 2007 at 11:23 am
This is pretty interesting. I’ve always felt Schneider was weak on defense, and sure enough he was one of the team leaders in penalties (sure enough, tied with Robert Lang). Good to know we really are getting a very solid defender.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Yeah, Schneider definitely played out the offensive defenseman role. When he was injured during the playoffs, I didn’t really feel that we missed him when it came to the defense, but we definitely were hurt on the PP.
It is a relief knowing we signed an offensive defenseman, who may be a bit smaller but better defensively. Plus we got rid of Lang.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
[…] Christy over at Behind the Jersey noticed that Brian Rafalski is smart when it comes to not leaving his team short-handed. She used stats from On the Forecheck to show that Rafalski takes very few penalties even while playing heavy minutes for the Devils. According to On the Forecheck, Rafalski averaged 25:29 minutes of ice time every game and only received 17 minor penalties in the 82 regular season games. Both Rafalski and Lidstrom can eat at least 50 of the 120 minutes two defenseman play in a game. The interesting to see will be whether they are paired together or play on separate pairings. My guess is they’l play on separate pairings for the most part. […]