Choose Your Weapon: Penalty Shot or Power Play
If a team’s awarded a penalty shot, should they rather have the power play instead?
Photo Credit: Rochester Knighthawks
During Saturday’s meeting between the Halifax Thunderbirds and Rochester Knighthawks, the home team was awarded a penalty shot for an illegal substitution from the Thunderbirds on the Knighthawks’ breakaway*. After Ryan Smith’s penalty shot was stopped, play-by-play broadcaster Craig Rybczynski quipped that one wonders if a National Lacrosse League team rather just take the power play instead of the penalty shot.
I’ve heard wishes of that being a rule change every offseason in the NLL for a while, picking whether teams want a 1-on-none for two seconds or a 5-on-4 for two minutes in situations where a penalty shot would normally be awarded. Ripper’s remark made me want to dig into what’s more optimal using my stats. Pay attention to the blue stats.
Photo Credit: Micheline Veluvolu/Rochester Knighthawks
Let’s address the biggest issue with penalty shots off the bat: they happen so, so rarely. There have only been 12 penalty shots made this season for 3 PSG. Last season, it was 24 shifts and 14 goals. I don’t have the number of penalty shot opportunities for the 2021-22 NLL season, but 24 PSG were scored — I’ll hazard a guess that there were more than 24 PSSets that season.
Most notable off that quick run of stats I rattled off was that penalty shot goals (and presumably opportunities) have decreased the last three seasons. The efficiency percentage has also gone down, but we only have almost two seasons of data to use — considering Las Vegas didn’t start playing until the 2022-23 NLL season, let’s just reference the last two seasons moving forward. NLL penalty shot efficiency has dropped from a 58.3 PSE% in 2022-23 to 25.0% in 2023-24.
How do penalty shots affect game outcomes? Over the last two seasons, teams that score one PSG more than their opponent win the game 53.3% of the time. Teams that whiff on that golden opportunity are 9-10, so basically a coin flip. It’s interesting how that’s shifted, however, as teams were 6-4 in 2022-23 (60%) compared to 3-6 (33.3%) in 2023-24.
On the other side of the coin, we have power plays, which are scored way more often, 146 of them for every PSG this season.
Power play efficiency over the last two seasons has been consistent. There were 524 power play goals last season on 2,680 TruePPSets, a 19.6 PPE%. With 111 games in hand in 2024, 439 PPG have found the back of the net on 2,256 TruePPSets for a 19.5% PPE%. Figure teams each have two 30-second sets during a power play in a game, meaning two power play shifts for the man-advantage team and two shorthanded shifts for the offending team (a gross oversimplification, but just roll with it), then teams are scoring a power play goal in about two-and-a-half 2-min. minor penalties (~5 minutes).
The other side of the other side of the coin is what can potentially happen on a power play. Yes, hopefully your team has more opportunities to bury the ball, but teams also play shorthanded and can score against your team while man-down. While the rate’s way down from when I wrote about the shorthand epidemic we experienced earlier this season, teams are collectively averaging just under a shorty per game. Compared to power play goals, an SHG finds the back of the net for every 4.26 PPG recorded; the NLL TrueSHE% is 9.9%.
25% or 19.5% — that’s pretty much what we’re working with. Which do you trust more on your team in 2024?
Only that’s not what all we’re working with. That 19.5% is more reliable considering it’s been relatively flat over two seasons, but that means more shifts have to be played to result in the desired result, and the 9.9 True SHE% weighs into that equation.
A power play is an amalgam of chaos and unpredictability. There are times it would better serve a team — like a team being up by five goals in the last ten minutes of a game and using a power play to effectively kill clock against their foe — but overall, a power play involves more moving pieces that can negatively affect the team with the man-advantage.
A penalty shot’s simple: You have a 25% chance — and remember, that number was 58.3% last season — to score a goal immediately this season. If your chosen player doesn’t net it, then you’re 5-on-5, no advantage your way.
It would be a gamble during the game for coaches. Do you go for a high-danger opportunity that’s becoming less and less successful as the seasons have gone on since returning to play after the pandemic, or do you hope a 5-on-4 goes your way and the other team doesn’t find success shorthanded?
You take the penalty shot. A free shot with no negative consequences? All day every day and twice on Sundays. As long as the NLL lets teams pick which player gets to take penalty shots, then that’s the smart play.
Now if the NLL wises up and says the player that was on the receiving end of the penalty leading to the penalty shot had to take the shot, then maybe teams pick the power play in those situations. Not everyone has that automatic Alex Crepinsek head lean while one-on-none.
* This was the Halifax illegal substitution that was determined to have interfered with the shooter on a breakaway, leading to a penalty shot. Johnny Pearson took a shot after sticking up for an O shift, and he immediately ran off the floor after Riley Hutchcraft stuffed his attempt. Cody Jamieson came on, got the ball, and made a pass for Clarke Petterson on the other side of the floor. Matt Gilray read the pass perfectly, intercepting it for the breakaway. Petterson busted his hump for the bench, and I think the camera caught his entrance into the substitution box with Tyson Bell’s exit onto the turf perfectly. One entered the box, and the other exited the box a hair after the other entered.
That video captures the illegal substitution, and the below image shows the interference roughly at the time of Gilray’s shot.
This blurb isn’t to question ref calls during the heat of the moment; that’s not a war I feel like waging, nor is that a guy I want to be that spends all his time questioning ticky tack penalties. NLL coaches get paid to do that; I do this for free.
The real question is why aren’t we seeing more penalty shots if the above is considered enough interference on a questionable illegal sub to warrant a penalty shot? There have been enough illegal substitution penalties this season where a team transitioned from O to D to stop a breakaway the other way, but the calls in accordance with Rule 96.7 aren’t as frequent, if at all. This is the only time I can remember this call being made all season.
Usually, calls leading to penalty shots involve a player draped along the back of the transitioning opponent like a cape, which is clearly worthy of a penalty shot. There was another time or two where too many simultaneous penalties meant a penalty shot had to take place to prevent the penalty box from resembling a sardine can, and another where a defending runner fell on top of the ball in his own crease above GLE.
There’s not really a point to this part of the article, just me trying to suss out in real time as I’m writing this why penalty shot opportunities are dwindling significantly over three seasons. There’s three reasons I can think of behind it: Refs aren’t calling plays like the above right/consistently, refs were calling plays resulting in penalty shots too often in 2021-22, or teams are just more disciplined and aren’t causing the types of plays resulting in penalty shots near as often as in seasons past.
Either way, it’s resulted in the diminishment of my least favorite part of the game over three season. Less penalty shots; more 5-on-5 play.