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xjoverax · 02-23-2024, 12:15 AM

We are currently sitting at roughly 45 games into the season and Carolina Kraken find themselves in 9th place in the league and 3rd place in the EOTTIRD Division. In what has been an up and down season thus far, the one constant Carolina has been able to count on (aside from Betzee Nickelback and the pudding line) is their special teams. Special teams in hockey refers to both the Power Play and Penalty Kill. Special teams can be a big momentum shift in games and can make a difference for teams that have found a good formula when faced with these situations. Carolina sits at 3rd place in Power Play goals at 25.9% and 2nd place in Penalty Kills with a kill rate of 83.8%. While Carolina’s place in the standings for PP and PK look very good, it’s not necessarily translating to their place in the Points standings. This prompted me to look further into the history of special teams in the J league and how success with them tends to translate not only in regular season standings, but in playoff success as well.

Combing through the index, I found that season 66 was the oldest season I could easily access team stats from, so I compiled data from season 66 through season 74 of the J league to see where teams ranked in the standings alongside their special teams rankings and if success in either translated into success in the playoffs as well. In these 9 seasons of team stats, ranking in the top 3 in PK% was good enough on average to net you at around 5th place in points. Results were essentially the same with PP% as well with a top 3 ranking landing your team again around 5th place. Obviously there is more that contributes to a team’s success than special teams rankings, but we can see that on average leading the league in either category bodes well for your potential standings at the end of the season. Now, if you were to lead the league in both categories did that make it even likelier to rank higher in the standings? No, it did not. On average if you placed in the top 3 for both PP% and PK% (which happened 9 times in those 9 seasons), you were still averaging 5th place in the season standings. So, what about playoffs? Well, of the 9 teams that averaged top 3 in both special teams categories there was a 2nd place finish, 1 Semi-finalist and 1 Champion. Although success in both categories didn’t correlate directly with playoff success, I did see that landing in the top 3 for either category produced a champion 6 out of the 9 seasons.

What does all of this mean for special teams in the J league? Well, not much to be honest. While special teams is surely an important part of the game, a team’s success during the season and more importantly during playoffs doesn’t rely heavily on special teams. Not saying it’s something to leave by the way side, but it is something that can be sacrificed a bit to sure up a team’s contributions during 5 on 5 play which is king when it comes to success when it comes to the J league.

(558 Words)

For the reader:

Lastly, and not to be counted as a part of my 500 word count for this DD, I have a confession. There is a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of body wash that have both been empty in my shower caddy for over 2 weeks. As I am typing this I could easily go and throw them away. But I probably won’t. Thanks for your time and for your support.

*CptSquall* · 02-29-2024, 10:56 AM

@xjoverax solid DD. Look to the portal later for your TPE

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