Scoring Chances Against on the Penalty-Kill and other data, through Games 6-45

Editor's Note: Slava takes another tack in his look at the Maple Leafs' penalty kill.

Following Friday night's game against the Sabres, where the Leafs gave up 3 Power-Play goals against on 3 opportunites, there has been a lot of talk about the Leafs terrible penalty-killing.  1967ers posted an article earlier today, comparing the '09-10 Leafs to other historically bad Penalty-Killing teams.  The Leafs are currently killing off penalties at an atrocious 68.4 %, and I'm mystified as to how they can be that bad 45 games into the season.  Goaltending seems to be a big part of it, but last night Toskala could hardly be blamed and others have raised points about the system being utilized.

I wanted to take a look at the personnel that the Leafs have been using so I've decided to post my scoring chances data for the Leafs while down a man (4-on-5 and 3-on-4) here at Pension Plan Puppets.  The scoring chances data are from games 6-45 and only the PK regulars/players who've spent a fair amount of time on the PK are included.

Gms = Games played during that time period, PPCA/60 = Chances Against per 60 minutes of PK time.

It looks like the best unit the Leafs could ice are Hagman-Stajan at forward with White-Schenn on defence.  It's no surprise that Exelby is terrible here, and Mayers has been used less on the PK recently.  He was also the Leafs worst PKer last season.

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Now, let's have a look at these players' on-ice Goals-Against-Average, Save Percentages, and Corsi numbers.

The following data has been lifted from Behind-the-Net.  These stats are from 4-on-5 situations only and are taken from all games played this game.

4v5 SVP = Goalie's Save Percentage while the player was on the ice.
4v5 Corsi = Team's Shot Attempt Differential at 4-on-5 while the player was on the ice.

The Corsi numbers seem to match well with the Scoring Chances data for the most part (one thing that could factor into some of the differences is that I don't count blocked shots as chances, while the Corsi metric, of course, includes blocks).  Again, Hagman and Stajan look like the best two PK forwards on the team by these numbers.  Schenn has the highest ranking Corsi metric on the team amongst defenders but his GAA is high due to an awful .774 save percentage in behind him.  Finger leads the team in GAA, though his Corsi looks a bit worse than his PPCA/60, and he also has a much higher save percentage than the rest of the team which may be suggestive of luck.  By these numbers, Primeau, Beauchemin, and Komisarek seem to be hindering rather than helping the Leafs PK, despite their reputations.  Interestingly, all three also had poor Corsi numbers last season, relative to their teams, and Komisarek had the worst GAA among Canadiens D at 8.83.