Deep-Diving Jack Hughes' Power Killing
86 has been deployed on the penalty kill for the first time in his career this season; how effective has the power killer been?
For the first time in his career, Jack Hughes is regularly being installed on the penalty kill. Usually occupying the second unit alongside Jesper Bratt, the two have turned into a two-headed monster, seemingly generating legitimate grade-A chances on the other end of the ice every time they’re deployed. Bratt is no newbie to this position, having been a staple in the Devils’ PK last season as well, but Jack certainly is, and the results have been incredibly encouraging.
Let’s get into what makes Jack in particular such a threat on the penalty kill:
League-Wide Statistical Dominance
312 skaters in the NHL have played at least 40 minutes of 4v5 hockey.
Among these 312, Jack ranks:
1st in goal share (GF%) — 66.67% (he is the only one with a positive goal differential)
1st in expected goal share (xGF%) — 25.64%
1st in shot attempt share (CF%) — 25.61%
1st in actual shot share (SF%) — 39.53% (second is 33.33%).
1st in scoring chance share (SCF%) — 29.82% (second is 25.93%)
1st in expected goals for per 60 minutes (xGF/60) - 2.66 (second is 2.21)
1st in shot attempts per 60 minutes (CF/60) - 28.41)
1st in actual shots per 60 minutes (SF/60) - 23.0
1st in scoring chances per 60 minutes (SCF/60) - 23.0 (second is 17.52)
I mean, that is simply ridiculous. He also ranks 13th in actual goals for per 60 minutes (GF/60), 27th in high-danger chances per 60 minutes (HDCF/60), and 30th in high-danger chance share. His defensive metrics are pretty good, too. He ranks 32nd in shot attempts against per 60 minutes (CA/60) and 10th in actual shots against per 60 minutes (SF/60). He’s about league-average in all of xGA/60 (147th), HDCA/60 (129th), and SCA/60 (125th).
Getting Into the “Why?” With Film
What these statistics are telling me is that Jack is providing offense on the penalty kill that is second to none while not giving anything more up in his own zone. It’s honestly pretty remarkable that he’s that across-the-board dominant.
What contributes to this dominance, though?
To me, it’s a couple of things. For one, he has exceptional stick control and is able to move it in a flash to take away passing lanes and intercept passes, turning them into rush opportunities. One might point to the fact that Jack has zero takeaways on the penalty kill this season, but pass interceptions are counted as giveaways by the other team rather than takeaways by the player.
Secondly, it’s his otherworldly hockey sense, which can be further broken down into a few points. I’ll start with his body positioning, which, when paired with his stick control mentioned above and his speed and explosiveness, can turn a seemingly innocuous situation into a scoring chance for the Devils. Notice in the clip below how Jack positions himself between the board battle and the only Flyers player below the goal line who isn’t partaking in it:
Jack understands that if the puck gets back up to the defenseman quarterbacking the unit, the second forward on the Devils (Bratt) will be able to block the shooting lane in time. He positions himself in a way that if the puck gets kicked out to the right, in the direction of the Flyers forward beneath the goal line, he’ll be able to intercept it and perhaps turn it into a legitimate scoring chance. Sure enough, the puck makes its way out in that direction, he intercepts it, explodes in the direction of the offensive zone, and nearly scores. His hockey sense even shows up in the shot in this clip, baiting Samuel Ersson to move in one direction while shooting on the opposite side. Ersson makes a miraculous save, but this play in particular is a testament to Jack’s undeniable and unmatchable hockey IQ.
This translates into his defensive game in-zone, too. Watch how he takes away a clear shooting lane for the Rangers and then immediately follows that up by ever-so-slightly disturbing Adam Fox and his shot with his stick:
The second bit of his hockey sense is his innate understanding that the best defense is a good offense. While some forwards are content to let their defenders clear the puck down the ice and conserve their energy, Jack has the understanding that if his defender gets the puck, he can turn it into a rush opportunity instead. This might use up more energy, but the thought process here is that if it doesn’t work and turns into a scoring chance or goal, he can simply change off the ice and perform a shorter shift on the way back. Watch how he reacts to the play below:
A lot of the time, a forward would see Pesce get control of the puck and just let him clear it away. Jack, though, immediately notices the Canadien forward on his knees and sliding out of position. You can legitimately see his “wait a minute…” moment in real-time, following that up with an odd-man opportunity capped off by the most disgusting shot you’ve seen this season.
When the puck is already entering the offensive zone by proxy of it being cleared down the ice, Jack is also a pretty aggressive forechecker on the penalty kill, particularly when it’s the goaltender who has possession of the puck. Pair that with his Spiderman-like abilities to keep the puck on and around his stick, and there’s a recipe for success:
While the forechecking in the above clip is the most obvious green flag in terms of his penalty-killing aptitude, the star of the show is, yet again, his body positioning and hockey sense. Ersson handles the puck for a second time (after losing it to Jack) and loses it to Bratt, who immediately gets swarmed by four Flyers players. Instead of helping Bratt out, Jack ever-quietly sneaks between two of the backcheckers in anticipation that Bratt would be able to see him if he maintained possession of the puck. Sure enough, he does maintain possession and dishes a soft pass between the Flyers players right to Jack, who sets up the defenseman Brett Pesce with a high-danger chance from between the dots.
There’s just so, so, so much to like about his penalty-killing abilities from an eye-test perspective, so it’s unbelievably refreshing to see the statistics back it up.
Zone Starts & PDO Grains of Salt
The caveats to all of this — and I’m not saying that he hasn’t been legitimately very good at killing penalties — are two things: zone starts and an inflated PDO.
I’ll start with the PDO because it’s less concerning to me — PDO is a measurement of “puck luck” which is calculated by adding a player’s on-ice shooting percentage (oiSH%) and on-ice save percentage (oiSV%). League-wide, PDO will always average 1.000 (or 100) — either a puck gets saved or goes in, right? There will always be players or teams on either end of the spectrum but the vast majority end up right around that mean value. Players or teams on the poles of the spectrum are expected to regress — either negatively or positively — to the mean.
Jack’s PDO on the penalty kill is 1.079, which is quite high. For comparison’s sake, the Washington Capitals, who are almost entirely a product of stand-on-your-head goaltending and shooting the lights out possess a PDO of 1.032, and they’re “expected” to regress back toward the mean of 1.000. Looking into Jack’s oiSH% and oiSV%, though, it becomes clear that the goaltending while he is on the ice is the culprit in why his numbers on the penalty kill look so good in some cases (particularly GF%). His PK oiSH% is a very normal and very sustainable 11.76% — considering he plays with another great shooter in Bratt, it’s hard for me to imagine this fluctuating all that much — but his oiSV% on the penalty kill is a realistically unsustainable .962. All this means is that opposing teams probably deserve some more goals going their way when Jack is killing penalties and that they’ll probably start going in a bit more with him out there.
The other caveat to his on-paper penalty-killing dominance is his zone start numbers, which prove a couple of things.
Starting with the raw numbers, he’s started a defensive zone faceoff just four times in those nearly 45 minutes, while starting in the offensive zone five times. He’s started a shift on the fly 74 times.
These aren’t necessarily surprising numbers considering he’s on the second unit, but it is important to put it out there that life is a lot easier when you’re consistently facing a team’s second power-play unit and aren’t taking defensive-zone faceoffs at all. Nico Hischier has started 143 times in the defensive zone off a faceoff in his 101 4v5 penalty-killing minutes, Dawson Mercer 140, Erik Haula 27, and even Jesper Bratt 31 (presumably before he started killing with Jack). The point is, he’s had the easiest life of any penalty killer on the team.
I don’t want to take anything away from him or his successes as a penalty killer, but his faceoff ineptitude would likely have resulted in some more goals against at this point, or at least several more chances and high-danger chances against.
For the continuation of his career, Jack should be a staple in the Devils’ penalty kill. What he’s doing this season at 4v5 is incredible and is yet another example of his monumental step forward defensively this season. He’s turning into a legitimate all-situations weapon, shooting him even further up the ranks among the league’s best than he already was.
Thanks for the insights. Great analysis. Great article.