When quantifying a player's value to a team, discipline is often left out of the calculation. That, or it is lumped into the discussion as a vague concept relating to nothing in particular; words for the sake of words.
This post will focus on the amount of penalties each Habs player takes per-60 minutes. For the purpose of this post, penalties are separated into two specific categories; obstruction and undisciplined. Obstruction penalties include tripping, hooking, holding the stick, and interference. Undisciplined penalties include cross-checking, high-sticking, boarding, and roughing.
OBSTRUCTION PENALTIES PER-60
This graph communicates the number of obstruction penalties each player takes per-60 minutes ice-time. Among defensemen, PK Subban took the most obstruction penalties per-60; followed closely by Jarred Tinordi. Lars Eller took the most obstruction infractions among centres, while George Parros took the most among wingers. Other wingers with high obstruction penalty numbers include Rene Bourque, and Daniel Briere.
Former Habs defenseman Josh Gorges, and newly-signed Mike Weaver took the fewest obstruction penalties per-60 among d-men, while Plekanec took the fewest among centres. Gorges' teammate in Buffalo, Brian Gionta was among those wingers with the fewest obstruction penalties per-60; as were Dale Weise, and Travis Moen.
For comparison's sake, newly-signed Edmong Oilers' forward Benoit Pouliot averaged 2.46 obstruction penalites per-60 during the 16 New York Rangers games I tracked last season.
Taking obstruction penalties per-60 into account to compare the discipline value of Tomas Plekanec with that of Lars Eller, we see that Eller was called for 3 times as many obstruction penalties per-60 than Plekanec. If each player averaged 15 minutes of ice-time per-game over the course of a season, Eller would earn 18 obstruction penalties per-season, while Plekanec would earn 6. Using 15% as the average success-rate of an NHL powerplay, Plekanec's discipline value would amount to 1 goal against per-
season, while Eller's would result in 3 goals against.
Two goals per-season may not seem like much, but remember if a team has 10 skaters with Eller's discipline value instead of Plekanec's those 2 goals per-season turn into 20 goals and a failed attempt at the playoffs pretty easily. By the way, Pouliot's discipline value alone would result in 9 goals against per-season.
OBSTRUCTION PENALTIES TAKEN PER-DEFENSIVE-TOUCH
Tracking the number of obstruction penalties a player takes can help us determine a player's defensive-discipline. Defensive-discipline relates to how efficiently a player can remove puck-possession from the opposition without taking a penalty.
In this context, a defensive-touch is described as any attempt to remove puck-possession from the opposition by way of a stick-check or body check. Subban took the most obstruction penalties per defensive-touch among defensemen, while Gorges, Weaver, and Andrei Markov took the fewest.
Ryan White took the most obstruction-penalties per defensive-touch among centres, while Parros took the most among wingers. As with the above graph, Gionta, Weise, and Moen were called for the fewest obstrucion penalties per defensive-touch.
Again, for Comparison's sake Pouliot averaged .091 obstruction penalties per defensive-touch.
UNDISCIPLINED PENALTIES PER-60
The number of undisciplined penalties per-60 taken by Tinordi, White and Parros are not surprising; considering their reputations. That said, seeing the likes of Alex Galchenyuk, Thomas Vanek, and Lars Eller with similar penalty numbers to Brandon Prust is surprising.
