With the Edmonton Oiler’s penalty kill posting excellent results, I thought it would be worth digging into the underlying performance numbers to see if the results are sustainable. And which individual players have been the drivers this season.

The Mattias Ekholm and Vincent Desharnais tandem on the blue line has been very good together, posting a rate of 33.45 shot attempts against per hour in 65 minutes together this season. Among 34 defence pairings who have played at least an hour together on the penalty kill, they rank first in terms of shots and unblocked shot attempts against. The average rate of shots against among these 34 defence pairings is 56.89 per hour, so they’re well below that level.

It is worth noting, too, that while the Oilers see an increase in shots and chances against Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci on the ice together, their actual rate of shots and chances are still just under league-average levels. That’s pretty solid considering they’re often playing against the other team’s top powerplay units. The tandem has played 101 minutes together on the penalty kill, which ranks 12th highest in the league.

Looking at the forwards, you can tell who’s been playing more often on the second penalty kill unit with the Ekholm/Desharnais tandem based on the green boxes. Connor Brown, for example, has posted excellent numbers and is a big reason why the Oilers have done a nice job suppressing chances. He’s been much maligned this season due to his poor play at even strength, which has led to demotions in the lineup and some time in the press box. But there’s no denying his contributions to the second unit. After his signing last summer, I had looked into his penalty kill numbers which were fine overall, but took a bit of a hit whenever he’d play on the top units in Ottawa and Toronto. Nice to see that the coaching staff recognized his strengths and weaknesses and put him in a position to succeed.

Sunil Agnihotri/Oilersnation

Full article is at Oilersnation.