Offical Tactics Thread: Powerplay & Penalty Kill

[infinitemile]

not sure who'll see this but Ive done some math in my 2035-2036 Blackhawks save (obv NHL teams only)

I recorded every team's PP% and PK% for the past 16 seasons and found the median for each season.

It seems like the medians are coded to oscillate between the lowest I've seen at 19.5% PP versus the highest at 21.5% PP, and 78% and 81.5% PK. Haven't seen any special teams median outside of those boundaries, but I'll keep recording.

The absolute highest full season PP% I've seen a team record is 30.9%, the lowest being 12.3% (midpoint of those is 21.6%). For PK% (excluding my team): highest is 88%, lowest is 68.5% (midpoint is 78.3%). Im sure people who've played more than I have will have seen percentages outside those numbers.

So, it feels like either special teams percentages are pre-determined to some extent, or are soft-capped and have an opposite reaction to ensure a steady median (meaning a 30.9% PP would result in at least one team being that much under-median, or several teams bearing that brunt collectively).

Off-topic, I've done the same thing with GF/game and GA/game but those numbers have noise because I've been the best at each for like 10 years straight . I'll remove my numbers and see what I can find.

What Im also curious about, but haven't been recording, is what effect the Barrage tactic has and if the game will take a Adam Oates on your shooting% to keep your team from scoring 10 goals a game.

[infinitemile]

okay I took my numbers out and did the same thing for GF/game and GA/game.

Firstly, GF/G: There are two "outlier" seasons (2020-2021 and 2023-2024) where the median GF/G was 2.70 and 2.78 respectively. Other than that, in the 11 seasons since then, GF/G oscillated pretty cleanly between 2.90 and 3.15 or so. Interestingly enough, the highest GF/G year was 3.12, but that was *not* the highest PP% year. The lowest was that 2.70 in 2021, don't know what exactly happened there.

For GA/G: you won't be surprised to learn that the two outlier seasons saw the two lowest median GA/G: 2.78 both years. The highest GF/G year was coincidentally the worst GA/G year, with another outlier at 3.28GA/G. Other than those, a median GA/G seems to lie most of the time between 2.85 and 3.15 or so, just about exactly the GF/Gs were.

Lastly, I was curious about the discrepancy between median GF/G and median GA/G in a given year. You'd expect that over 100 years+ of data, the discrepancy should be 0 (a goal for is a goal against). That weird outlier season with a GF/G of 3.12 and a GA/G of 3.28 seems to draw a picture of goal-scoring being up league-wide, and the worst 10 to 15 teams allowing lots of goals against, while the best teams weren't world-beating on defense either. On top of that, there'd be a few teams scoring lots of goals, and everyone else is in the mushy middle.

Indeed, anecdotally, that was the only year out of the past 7 seasons where my Blackhawks allowed above 2 goals a game on average. I'd believe that it is randomly generated by the game, given that my defense and goaltending were virtually identical the season before and the season after, with the same tactics, and posted GA/G <2.00 each year.

PLUS, that year saw a higher GF/G by me (using basically the same forwards and tactics) than the year prior or proceeding.

TL;DR: It's tough to tell whether the game pre-determines the amount of goals that teams score in a year, or if it's just luck. Either way, I fully believe with the data I've recorded that there are "ranges" of special teams medians and GFs and GAs medians that are unlikely to be broken. These ranges would be:

PP (19.5%->21.5%)
PK (78%-> 82%)
GF/game (2.8->3.2)
GA/game (2.8->3.2) (equal as GF/game over time)

I hope someone found something interesting in all this! My next step is to record shot metrics and PPGs versus PP opportunity.

[nino33]

I hope someone found something interesting in all this!

I find it interesting (I like baseline numbers/ranges), thank you for sharing

[gamblor]

Can somebody post up their tactics they use in the game or even yet post a good detail on the tactics system since the manual doesn't break it down too well