Article: Minnesota's Undisciplined Play Undermines Their Draft Strategy

[Justin Hein]

On 1/12/2024 at 2:58 PM, mnfaninnc said:

Justin, do you have access to the Wild PIM breakdown. Not just minors, majors and misconducts, but the minors broken down by type of penalty? 

I think that might help our discussion. Every team gets high sticking penalties, but it seems like we get more than our fair share of tripping, hooking type calls.

If you're good with Excel you can use IcyData's here. https://www.icydata.hockey/player_stats/42/penalties

I did an analysis earlier in the year and the Wild basically took 10% more penalties than the average team, and I didn't notice a particular category of minors (trips, slashes, boarding, etc) that stood out. That's part of the reason I think it's a reputation issue, but I didn't include it in the article because my data was from earlier in the season. 

[mnfaninnc]

1 hour ago, Justin Hein said:

I did an analysis earlier in the year and the Wild basically took 10% more penalties than the average team, and I didn't notice a particular category of minors (trips, slashes, boarding, etc) that stood out. That's part of the reason I think it's a reputation issue, but I didn't include it in the article because my data was from earlier in the season. 

I did count the stick infractions, 56 penalties called without using crosschecking. I would suggest if you could cut that in half as a team you'd have 56 less PIMs. These are the unearned penalties, and, I believe, the most undisciplined. I also saw more than our fair share of holding penalties. I'd suggest that this had to do with not being able to keep up with the speed/quickness of other players in the league.

One remedy is just to be more disciplined. Another remedy is to be faster/quicker. The only way for remedy 2 to be made is for the team to bring in the younger talent that is faster/quicker. That may have an impact in 2 areas, less holding and maybe some stick infractions, and more drawing of penalties.