Silver Nuggets: Taking and drawing penalties

The Ottawa Senators have a very good power play and a very bad penalty kill. The obvious consequence of this is that it is very advantageous for this club to draw a penalty as well as being very costly to take a penalty. So which players are helping put the club on the power play and who is condemning Ottawa to the horrors of their penalty kill?

Considering 5-on-5 situations and ignoring fighting majors and coincidental roughing calls, courtesy of Behind The Net here is the data for players who have at played at least 10 games for Ottawa this season.

Drawing penalties
The top five players who draw penalties are: 1) Zack Smith (3.1 penalties per 60 minutes), 2) Stéphane Da Costa (1.4 per 60 minutes), 3) Jason Spezza (0.9 per 60 minutes), 3) Daniel Alfredsson (0.9 per 60 minutes) and 5) Colin Greening (0.7 per 60 minutes). The most surprising name on this list for me is Zack Smith. He might take some penalties, but as you will soon see, he's drawing more. With 136.67 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time, this works out to Smith drawing seven penalties. By comparison, Jason Spezza has drawn three penalties in his 192.97 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey.,

Taking penalties
The top five players in taking penalties are: 1) Chris Neil (3.7 penalties per 60 minutes), 2) Zack Smith (2.2 penalties per 60 minutes), 3) Jason Spezza (1.6 penalties per 60 minutes), 4) Sergei Gonchar (1.5 penalties per 60 minutes), 5) Erik Karlsson (1.2 penalties per 60 minutes). No surprise here on who the leader is. Chris Neil has taken ten penalties in 5-on-5 situations (eleven minors in total) and he has drawn only one penalty. Zack Smith and Jason Spezza are in the top three in both drawing and taking penalties. Sergei Gonchar and Erik Karlsson round out the top five. Karlsson has taken five penalties in 5-on-5 situations but this is in 241.33 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey, which is why he is fifth on the list. Karlsson has also yet to draw a penalty in 5-on-5 situations. Chris Phillips has yet to take a single penalty this season which seems incredible after 13 games.

Links after the jump.

General Sens News

• Robin Lehner has joined twitter. That is just awesome. I hope he is full of entertaining quotes. Everyone on here twitter should follow him! (Robin Lehner)
• Lines in practice this morning: 1) Greening-Spezza-Michalek, 2) Foligno-Da Costa-Butler, 3) Filatov-Smith-Neil, 4) Condra-Konopka-Winchester. Nice to finally see Filatov getting off the fourth line, he at least has a chance with Smith and Neil. (Sylvain St-Laurent)
• Bruce Garrioch takes a look at five surprising statistics for the Senators this year. The power play, goaltending, goal scoring, Erik Karlsson's point total and the penalty kill. (Ottawa Sun)
• Today, Daniel Alfredsson spoke to the media and said he is okay, but not great. Alfredsson added that he has to sit down and relax when playing with the kids. He also feels dizzy. (Senators Extra)
• On the Shanahan decision, Alfredsson doesn't agree with, but admits he could have avoided the hit. He also sympathises with Shanahan's job, saying that Shanahan will be criticised no matter what he decides. (Ian Mendes)
• Many of us have been asking for Brendan Shanahan to explain why he didn't suspend Wojtek Wolski for his hit on Daniel Alfredsson. Well now he did. Shanahan feels the hit was unavoidable and that Wolski didn't have a history. I don't agree with Shanahan at all that it was unavoidable, but I do appreciate him at least explaining it. Kind of. (Yahoo!)
• Peter Regin is happy he doesn't need surgery and says all the doctors have told him it was unnecessary. Initially when I heard he wanted a second opinion, I assumed the first opinion was surgery, but maybe he just wanted to make sure he didn't need it. He hopes to be back in six weeks. (Ottawa Sun, Senators Extra)
• Jared Cowen joined Kaspars Daugavins and Stéphane Da Costa in scoring their first career NHL goals this season. The only one remaining now is David Rundblad. (Ottawa Citizen)
• A pretty detailed analysis of the Senators prospect depth at each position. The forward ranks are really looking much better than they did just a short while ago. (Hockey's Future)
• Paul MacLean has considered putting Brian Lee in the lineup in the last three games but felt the defensive pairs have been playing well. I think Brian Lee will play Friday or Saturday. Between Jared Cowen and David Rundblad, I would sit Cowen for a game as Rundblad brings a little something different. (Ottawa Citizen)
• Pierre Dorion was on the radio discussing the Kyle Turris speculation as well as Jean-Gabriel Pageau. (The 6th Sens)
• An interesting analysis by a website where they measure momentum in games as well as other stats. For the record, the Senators were ninth in "average momentum per game" before the Boston game. It's worth reading if you have some time. (Power Scout Hockey)
• Ian Mendes asked every player on the Senators why they wear the number they do. The explanations range from "always wore that" to "was given to me" to a reason with some meaning. Erik Condra will never get his #11 here though. (Ian Mendes)