NHL Penalty-Killing Extremes: Some Record-Level Early Performances, Both Good and Ugly

The Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars and Calgary Flames are on pace to beat the NHL's all-time penalty kill record. But where there's one extreme, there are the Minnesota Wild, Edmonton Oilers and Nashville Predators at the other.

When it comes to killing penalties in the NHL this season, there's a good amount of feast and famine.

Let's start by looking more closely at the best of the bunch.

Last season, the Boston Bruins were the standard-bearers for play while shorthanded — as they were in many statistical categories. Though only three other teams were shorthanded more often, Boston allowed a league-low 36 goals, just 0.44 goals per game, and boasted a success rate of 87.3 percent on the penalty kill.

The best penalty kill since the NHL started keeping detailed stats in 1977-78 belonged to Peter DeBoer's 2011-12 New Jersey Devils, at 89.6 percent. That group gave up just 27 goals while shorthanded all year — and scored 15 times themselves, for an incredible shorthanded goal differential of just minus-12.

This year, the Big Bad Bruins are right back to being one of the most penalized teams — shorthanded an average of 4.17 times per game. 

Are Boston's players emboldened by the fact there's rarely any harm done when they're sent to the sin bin? This season, they're killing at a rate of 94 percent, which would obliterate the Devils' record if they can sustain it. They've given up just three goals while shorthanded all year — and interestingly enough, two of them came in their only regulation loss of the year to date to Detroit last Saturday.

Also — Boston isn't alone in its penalty-killing prowess. Four other teams are also ahead of the Bruins' 87.3 percent benchmark from last season. 

It shouldn't be surprising that one is DeBoer's current squad, the Dallas Stars. They have also given up just three goals so far, but they've been shorthanded 10 fewer times. So their success rate sits at 92.5 percent. 

For a dash of irony — the most recent scorer against the Dallas penalty kill was none other than Boston captain Brad Marchand, with what proved to be the winner in the Bruins' 3-2 win over the Stars in Dallas last Monday.

DeBoer's Stars also had last season's third-best penalty kill, at 83.5 percent.

In third place this year is a team you probably wouldn't expect. Though they're tied for 26th overall defensively, giving up an average of 3.5 goals per game, the Calgary Flames have allowed just four goals while shorthanded so far. Under Darryl Sutter, their penalty kill was good last year — tied for fourth-best at 82.6 percent. This season, under former defensive assistant Ryan Huska, they're up to 90 percent. Maybe it's something to build off as they try to dig out of their early-season hole?

Fourth place belongs to the Colorado Avalanche. They're another team that spends a lot of time in the box — just slightly more than Boston, at 4.18 times per game. But Jared Bednar's group has successfully killed all but five penalties while also scoring four shorthanded goals. Their minus-1 penalty-kill differential is the best in the league, and their kill rate is 89.1 percent — a massive improvement from their middle-of-the-pack 79 percent last season. 

On the back end, Cale Makar's penalty-killing role has increased from last season. The same is true for Logan O'Connor up front, and new addition Fredrik Olofsson has become a key part of the kill since Colorado acquired him from Dallas during the summer.

Finally, there's another surprising team among the feel-good stories. The Buffalo Sabres have allowed just six goals during 50 penalty kills, or 88 percent. That's a stunning improvement from last season when Buffalo finished 28th with a 73-percent success rate. 

The No. 1 catalyst for the turnaround appears to be off-season acquisition Erik Johnson. The big stay-at-home veteran defenseman leads the entire NHL with 55:20 of shorthanded ice time this season. Buffalo is also home to the NHL's most-used forward on the penalty kill: 2023 trade-deadline acquisition Jordan Greenway.

At the other end of the spectrum, last year's most pitiful penalty kill belonged to the Vancouver Canucks. When Bruce Boudreau was let go on Jan. 22, 2023, the Canucks were sitting at a disastrous 65.9 percent and tracking to beat out the 1979-80 Los Angeles Kings (68.2 percent) as the worst penalty-killers on record.

The 2022-23 Canucks still finished with the worst shorthanded success rate at season's end, but they rallied enough under Rick Tocchet to climb to 71.6 percent — not just avoiding that 'worst of all-time' label but also not even the worst Canucks team in history. That dishonor goes to the 1984-85 squad (70.5 percent), while 1977-78 (71.5 percent) was also slightly worse.

This year, Vancouver is returning to respectability, sitting just below the league average at 77.3 percent.

But eight NHL teams currently have worse penalty-killing records than the 2022-23 Canucks — and the Minnesota Wild are now in the pole position to chase the all-time record.

With a longstanding reputation as a stingy team that doesn't give up much, the Wild have surrendered four goals a game through the first month of the season, ranking them 30th overall. And while they only put themselves down a man an average of 3.25 times per game, they've given up 13 power-play goals in 12 games. Ten of those goals came in a six-game stretch from Oct. 21 to Nov. 22 on just 22 shorthanded opportunities, leaving them at 66.7 percent.

This is a sudden turn of events for the Wild, who had a top-10 kill last season at 82 percent. But two of last season's most-used killers are currently on the sidelines. Frederick Gaudreau missed the last six games with an upper-body injury, and captain Jared Spurgeon hasn't played yet this year but is getting close to a return from an upper-body issue of his own.

Here are the other seven teams that are struggling mightily while shorthanded:

Nashville, Winnipeg and San Jose all had excellent penalty kills last season, at just over 82 percent. 

Ryan McDonagh remains a staple for new Predators coach Andrew Brunette, but Mattias Ekholm and Tanner Jeannot are most likely missed from the Preds' rotation.

And while the Sharks' misfortunes can be chalked up to their absolutely horrific start to the year, the drop-off for the Jets is more mysterious.

They're not the tightest team defensively this season, giving up 3.33 goals per game. But they're scoring enough to be sitting in a playoff spot, and most of their key penalty-killers are the same names as last season: DeMelo, Dillon, Lowry, Appleton and Samberg — the only real change is a bit more responsibility for Morgan Barron. 

But layered onto that backdrop, the Jets have only played two games all year where they didn't give up at least one power-play goal. It feels like that's a number that might move back toward the league average as the season wears on. 

With five teams that are remarkably good while shorthanded this season and eight that are downright terrible, more than a third of the league is entering an extreme state every time a penalty is assessed.

And these numbers do go beyond typical early-season variance.

At this time last year, only two teams were above Boston's season-ending mark of 87.3 percent — the Bruins themselves, at 93.3, and the Sharks at 92.3.

And at the low end of the spectrum, the Canucks were at 60.5 percent a month into the season. 

But they did have some company: five other teams were also below 71.6 percent at that point:

That suggests that better days should lie ahead for the bottom dwellers as the season rolls along.