STOP THE PRESSES! Sens edge an opponent in Powerplays for the first time this season

It was bound to happen eventually, and personally, I was hoping they would make it to the twenty game mark, but alas the streak is over!  Overshadowing their comeback win against the mighty Bruins last night was the fact that the Ottawa Senators had more power plays than their opponent for the first time this season, a mere 19 games (or 23% of the season) in to the 2013-2014 schedule.

This landmark accomplishment was in doubt, even late in the 3rd period.  With just over 3-minutes to play, and the power plays notched at one a piece, Dennis Seidenberg knocked Bobby Ryan out of the game with an elbow to the face.  With the stance set by the league on headshots, especially illegal ones involving an extended elbow with the head as the principle point of contact, the debate amongst most fans would be whether Seidenberg would receive a 5 minute major and a match penalty, just a 5 minute major, or maybe a more lenient double minor or minor penalty.  Those who have watched all 19 Senators games this season would have correctly predicted the actual outcome: No penalty.

Following the precedent set by this non-call, Jarome Iginla then decided to make a similar hit on the very next play, throwing his shoulder into the head of Cory Conacher.  Iginla was justified in questioning the call, given that it was much less dangerous than that of Seidenberg, but you could give the benefit of the doubt to the officials in recognizing that they missed the first one, and tried to make it up with this one.

So the Senators have a 100% winning record in games where they receive an advantage in powerplays.  If that trend holds, that is 4 wins over the course of the season.  Cue the Woo Hoo music!

UPDATE: I made light of the Seidenberg elbow because it seemed like a given that a suspension was inevitable.  After waiting all day, it is now confirmed that despite it being: 1) An illegal hit using an elbow 2) A hit that targeted the head, 3) The head of the opponent was the principle point of contact, and 4) an injury resulted from the hit; Dennis Seidenberg will face absolutely no disciplinary action.  I was puzzled by the decision to suspend Eric Gryba in last year's playoffs, but I thought it would at least clear up what was suspendable in the future.  I am now really starting wonder which Ottawa Senator slept with Gary Bettman's wife.

"The refs have it in for us!" - Is there any truth to this statement?

UPDATE (OCT 28th) - 11 games into the season and Ottawa still haven't played one game in which they have had more power plays than their opponent.  They are now -33:18, still almost double the 29th place team.  They are also one of 3 NHL teams that have not had 1 second of 5-on-3 time.  Colorado meanwhile, have plummeted from 6th down to 26th in PP-PK time, upholding their unenviable trend from the past 4 seasons.
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As a Senators fan who recognizes my own bias, I sometimes think that I am guilty of discounting legitimate issues, attributing my concerns to my own fan allegiances.  But after watching another game in which it seemed the Ottawa Senators could not buy a powerplay, I started trying to remember the last times the Senators played a game in which they had more powerplays than the opposition.  It hasn't happened in 5 games this season (BUF 4-3, TOR 6-1, LAK 6-4, SJ 5-3, ANA 5-1).  And come to think of it, it hasn't happened very often, in a long time.  It seemed like I had to go back to the days of Jacques Martin, when Ottawa was winning Presidents trophies, when Ottawa was spending more time on a regular basis on the attack rather than penalty killing.

So I started doing some digging, and the statistics are actually quite shocking.  In this case perception is reality.  There are two teams that would seem to have reason to ask questions about the consistency with which they find themselves being penalized and not getting powerplays.

These two teams are Ottawa and Colorado.

I used the Powerplay time to Penalty Kill time gap as the preferred indicator, and stats are recent up to the morning of Monday October 14th.  The PP:PK time stat is not without its flaws: Teams that score early into powerplays would decrease their PP time, and teams that allow goals early in penalty kills would decrease their PK time.  But it accurately allows us to overlook the meaningless penalties assessed in the dying seconds of a game, when the teams don't actually gain an advantage, and also accounts for "neutralized powerplays", when a team has a powerplay cut short by being assessed a penalty during their own powerplay.  Most importantly, the focus on the gap means that it is looking both at penalties taken, and power plays awarded.  A team could be a "dirty" team that takes lots of penalties or gets assessed lots of fighting majors, but this team could also be receiving an offsetting amount of powerplays and still have a small gap.

So here are some highlights (or maybe lowlights!):

• The Ottawa Senators have not had a season in which they had more Powerplay time than Penalty Kill time since 2006-2007
• Between 2007-2008 and 2013-2014, the Ottawa Senators have spent 352 more minutes killing penalties than playing with a man advantage (This is just shy of 6 full games).  The Colorado Avalanche, during the same stretch spent 103 minutes more killing penalties than playing on the PP.
• In the 2011-2012 season, the Colorado Avalanche were in a league of their own, with a -114 minute PP : PK gap.  The 29th place team had to kill 34 minutes fewer, and the 1st place team (CBJ) were 216 minutes clear of them at +102.
• On average, between 2007-2008 and 2013-2014, the Ottawa Senators have found themselves 27th in the league in the PP : PK time statistic, never reaching higher than 22nd in 2008-2009.  Their second highest finish was 27th.  Colorado Avalanche were on average, 18th during the same span, but ranged as high as 4th and as low as 30th.

What does this mean?

First off, allow me to say that I do not think this to be some kind of conspiracy.  I don't think there is any match-fixing going on, especially not for Ottawa or Colorado games.  But sometimes, statistics can tell a story that suggests there may be some latent influence occurring.  Personally, I think that the fan influence during Montreal and Toronto games take away the home ice edge for 6 to 8 of Ottawa's 41 home games, and the yells and screams for penalties from these particularly boisterous groups of away fans probably gain the opponents some calls.  There is also the issue of reputations and rapport with the refs.  We all remember the publicized instance of Dan O'Rourke calling Erik Karlsson a "diver," and of course there were the Cory Clouston years where the young coach demonstrated an inability to bite his lip and let go of the bad calls in the way that Jacques Martin could (to a fault).  During that time, some of our young players followed suit, joining in on the yapping and probably not earning themselves any benefit-of-the-doubt.  Are there other factors at play?  I don't know, but at least I know that I am not crazy now that I have looked up the stats. Let me know what you think.

Raw spreadsheet data below:

Season	Team	PP : PK time	Ranking in NHL
2013-2014	OTT	-23:53:00	30
	COL	10:12:00	6
2012-2013	OTT	-28:34:00	27
	COL	-68:34:00	29
2011-2012	OTT	-71:39:00	27
	COL	-114:00:00	30
2010-2011	OTT	-74:00:00	29
	COL	-56:01:00	26
2009-2010	OTT	-46:16:00	27
	COL	12:12:00	12
2008-2009	OTT	-24:24:00	22
	COL	08:48:00	16
2007-2008	OTT	-83:02:00	28
	COL	69:38:00	4
2006-2007	OTT	27:15:00	12
	COL	35:04:00	10
Total 2007-2013	OTT	-351:48:00	27.1428571429	Average
	COL	-102:41:00	17.5714285714

A Guide to the Playoffs for Leafs Fans

By Mark Baldwin

The recent image of Rihanna wearing a heritage Senators jersey around Beverly Hills sent tweets flying all over Ottawa, but also drew a lot of ire from Leafs fans. “Why would she choose the jersey of our bitter rivals instead of the classic blue and white?” so many have asked.  While only "Riri" knows for sure, there is one fact that cannot be overlooked: The last time the Leafs played a playoff game, she was just a 16-year old Barbadian high-school student with a demo tape. She didn't even know what hockey was.  Rihanna is 25 now, a ripe old age for a pop icon; however, the next generation of pop stars could be inspired by the recent groundbreaking news – The Leafs will play in the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs.

You may be surprised to learn this, but I – a Senators fan – welcome the Leafs back.  Granted, after so many defeats at the hands of the Leafs back in the old NHL, I took some pleasure in those first three or four seasons of failure.  Since then, however, I feel like there is something missing.  The “Battle of Ontario” had become a cold war, but finally, there are some signs of life again.

The playoffs begin shortly, but bear in mind that a lot can change in nine years.  To put things into perspective, as of May 4^th, 2004, the day of the last Maple Leafs playoff game:

·         Downtown Torontonians were outraged that gas prices had risen to 72 cents a litre.

·         The Montreal Expos still existed.

·         Paul Martin was Prime Minister, and Canada had a $9.1 Billion surplus.

·         You had never seen Janet Jackson’s nipple.

The world has changed, and the game itself has changed, and since Ottawa have played in 46 playoff games since 2004, I figure it would only be neighbourly of me to bring all of the Leafs fans up to speed on the modern day ins-and-outs of cheering on your team in the playoffs.

 

The Experience

 

Technology has played a major role in enhancing the playoff experience.  Since 2005, CBC has been broadcasting playoff games in spectacular, crystal clear High Definition Television.  The next best thing to being at a playoff game live, is watching it in High Definition.  You may have gotten a glimpse of the wonders of HDTV in one of the 5 Olympics that have taken place since the Leafs last playoff appearance.

 

Another guilty pleasure that you have been missing out on for the past nine years is the joy of gloating to your friends after a big playoff win.  But wasn't it annoying, time consuming, and expensive to phone all of your friends individually?  Well you are in for a treat.  In 2004, some enterprising business students from Harvard invented a web-based program known as “Facebook” which kicked off the social media revolution.  Now you can use Facebook or Twitter to share your clever quips with all of your friends at once!

 

But won't I need a computer to access these new web-based social media sites?  A valid question from someone who hasn't been to a playoff game since 2004, given that fewer than 5 million people in the world even owned an iPod then.  Little did we know that the iPod would later become the iPod video, and then the iPod touch, and now the iPhone. Since 2008, smartphones like the iPhone have gained more and more market share and are now ubiquitous.  For a low monthly fee, you can access all of the wonders of the internet via your cell phone, right in the Air Canada Centre.  Monitor the scores of the other games, check your email during intermission, tweet photos of the action in real-time – These days, the world is literally at your fingertips.  Budget some time to make the adjustment so you don't find yourself too overwhelmed at that first home game.

 

The Game

 

The game of hockey itself has changed since 2004 – Actually it has changed a number of times.  Here are some of the significant rule changes to keep in mind during the playoffs:  In 2005, a rule was introduced which required teams to play 4-on-4 in overtime, and if five minutes of overtime solved nothing, a shootout would ensue to determine the winner of the game.  What is important for you to note, is that these rules do not apply in the playoffs!  Don't stand up and yell “Too many men!” when the overtime starts, or you will instantly give yourself away as a playoff newbie.

 

There was a time when shooting the puck over the glass was considered a legitimate defensive play, and an effective one for players like Ken Klee and Aki Berg.  Today, heaving the puck into the stands will earn you an automatic two minute stay in the penalty box, even in the playoffs.  Speedy players like Alex Mogilny and Doug Gilmour would have loved playoffs without the 2-line pass rule, but a new generation of Leafs players will finally get to benefit from this new freedom in 2013. In 2005-2006, the NHL began cracking down on holding, hooking, and interference.  For example, if the last Maple Leafs vs. Flyers playoff game from 2004 was replayed today, 83 power plays would have been awarded, and Brian McCabe alone would have amassed 46 penalty minutes.  Fortunately, the Leafs players have had 622 regular season games to adjust to these changes in officiating.

 

In 2012, new rules were introduced concerning faceoff infractions, but since no one understands these rules, including the players, coaches, and referees, you will be no more bewildered by the calls than the fans of the other 29 teams.

 

There you have it Leafs fans – I hope you have found this guide educational and informative.  Having never experienced a playoff drought this long, I can only imagine your level of excitement!  Although a Battle of Ontario seems unlikely for the 2013 playoffs, you know the old saying, make the playoffs and anything can happen... Good luck!