Way back in August, blog contributor Jagrmeister developed an analytical way to look at Grit. The initial post can be found here if you would like a refresher. In today’s post, Jagr reexamines the stats to see just how Gritty the Penguins have become.

What is Grit^TM? For the purpose of this post it’s a made up metric of blocked shots + hits. We talked about this over the summer noting that GMJR was hoping to make the team “harder to play against”. His big acquisition over the summer was Brandon Tanev.

Let’s see how he’s fared so far this season:

Year	Rank	Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	ATOI	BS	HIT	Grit	Grit/Gm
2018-2019	12	Brandon Tanev	WPG	LW	80	14	15	29	9	41	14:07	81	278	359	4.49
2019-2020	7	Brandon Tanev	PIT	LW	50	10	12	22	2	10	14:49	52	186	238	4.76

Looks like Tanev has picked up right where he left off. If you adjust last year’s grit/gm for the increased TOI he’d be around 4.71. So far he’s been exactly as advertised and even moderately more successful offensively.

Let’s have a look at another of the lightning rod players from this summer:

Year	Rank	Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	ATOI	BS	HIT	Grit	Grit/Gm
2018-2019	9	Jack Johnson	PIT	D	82	1	12	13	-4	41	19:17	147	233	380	4.63
2019-2020	31	Jack Johnson	PIT	D	48	3	7	10	7	16	19:30	62	130	192	4.00

Another similar result. Johnson’s grit has gone down a bit and his offensive totals have gone up a little as well. He’s finally living up to the contract he signed in the summer of 2018. This season Jack is bringing more to the table than just the grit he brought last year. He’s been more effective offensively and defensively. While his relative stats generally point to him making his teammates worse when he’s on the ice, he’s been an effective bottom half defenseman. 

I also called out ZAR as similar to Tanev in my previous post. He’s received a good bit of flack through the first part of the season, and looking at the stats you can see why. ZAR has fallen off both offensively and with his grit. Perhaps playing on the same line as Tanev has reduced his chances to up his grit numbers. He has been a decent bottom 6 forward, but still one that we’d like to see more from.

Year	Rank	Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	ATOI	BS	HIT	Grit	Grit/Gm
2018-2019	24	Zach Aston-Reese	PIT	C	43	8	9	17	12	26	13:39	37	138	175	4.07
2019-2020	125	Zach Aston-Reese	PIT	C	50	5	6	11	5	22	14:33	26	119	145	2.90

On the other end of the spectrum we have the silky soft gritless players (i.e. skilled players). Last year’s least gritty player in the League was Johnny Gaudreau. Not surprisingly, he’s in the same place again this year. Being allegedly 5’9” and 165 lbs in the NHL doesn’t lend itself well to a gritty game.

But who is the lowest ranked Penguin?

Yeah, our very own Dominik Kahun is the #12 overall softest player in the league. He’s even ahead of our favorite all-American, hot dog loving, poker playing, awkwardly lovable old pal Philip J. Kessel, who sits at #14.

So now let’s switch gears and talk about teams overall. Over the summer I showed how Grit^TM has almost no correlation to points in the standings. With about 50 games per team in the books let us have a look and see if that still holds true.

Yup, still looks like I plotted this graph with a shotgun. Tabular ratings below. As you can see, the Pens are #3 in grit per game (and tied for 2nd in hits delivered). The Islanders are first which isn’t too surprising because they are a “heavy” team and have guys like Matt Martin. Ottawa isn’t surprising either because they suck and naturally spend more time trying to get the puck and therefore hitting/blocking shots more often. 

The bottom of the standings is a little more interesting. Carolina at the bottom regularly has huge Corsi numbers, so not surprising for them to be there. But let’s talk about St. Louis. The defending cup champs are thought of as a heavier hitting, big team, but the stats say otherwise.

Rank	Team	BS	Hits	Grit	Grit/Gm	Games	Points
1	NYI	853	1429	2282	46.57	49	63
2	OTT	752	1317	2069	43.10	48	42
3	PIT	646	1429	2075	41.50	50	67
4	MTL	680	1366	2046	40.92	50	51
5	VEG	682	1442	2124	40.85	52	57
6	CHI	772	1223	1995	39.12	51	54
7	WSH	679	1157	1836	37.47	49	71
8	EDM	741	1070	1811	36.96	49	57
9	DAL	730	1035	1765	36.77	48	58
10	BOS	631	1231	1862	36.51	51	70
11	NYR	699	1042	1741	36.27	48	50
12	CBJ	771	1023	1794	35.88	50	60
13	DET	654	1135	1789	35.78	50	28
14	WPG	618	1163	1781	35.62	50	54
15	SJS	648	1115	1763	35.26	50	46
16	TBL	601	1084	1685	35.10	48	62
17	NJD	686	971	1657	34.52	48	41
18	ANA	611	1045	1656	34.50	48	43
19	VAN	747	929	1676	34.20	49	58
20	LAK	633	1053	1686	33.72	50	41
21	ARI	695	998	1693	33.20	51	57
22	PHI	601	1057	1658	33.16	50	60
23	COL	710	902	1612	32.90	49	62
24	FLA	705	868	1573	32.10	49	61
25	CGY	682	904	1586	31.72	50	57
26	NSH	649	832	1481	31.51	47	51
27	STL	562	977	1539	31.41	49	68
28	MIN	652	803	1455	29.69	49	50
29	BUF	532	907	1439	29.37	49	51
30	TOR	611	823	1434	29.27	49	57
31	CAR	584	827	1411	28.22	50	61

All the stats for the analysis above are from hockey-reference.com. This time around I also checked out some stats from naturalstattrick.com. The main difference here is that the naturalstattrick stats are 5-on-5 specific, so total numbers aren’t as high. But what it does give me are hits taken. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Rank	Team	BS	Hits	Hits taken	Grit	Grit/Gm	Games	Points
1	NYI	682	1349	963	2031	41.44897959	49	63
2	PIT	536	1304	1510	1840	36.8	50	67
3	OTT	573	1159	931	1732	36.08333333	48	42
4	VGK	515	1322	1268	1837	35.32692308	52	57
5	MTL	528	1209	1117	1737	34.74	50	51
6	CHI	637	1103	1318	1740	34.11764706	51	54
7	EDM	607	998	1037	1605	32.75510204	49	57
8	DAL	584	960	829	1544	32.16666667	48	58
9	CBJ	643	963	1043	1606	32.12	50	60
10	BOS	496	1133	1195	1629	31.94117647	51	70
11	WPG	517	1061	917	1578	31.56	50	54
12	NYR	562	944	956	1506	31.375	48	50
13	WSH	499	1038	837	1537	31.36734694	49	71
14	S.J	513	1029	946	1542	30.84	50	46
15	T.B	444	1001	964	1445	30.10416667	48	62
16	ARI	588	930	1079	1518	29.76470588	51	57
17	L.A	520	964	1002	1484	29.68	50	41
18	DET	505	971	844	1476	29.52	50	28
19	VAN	575	871	804	1446	29.51020408	49	58
20	N.J	548	856	783	1404	29.25	48	41
21	PHI	488	967	985	1455	29.1	50	60
22	ANA	476	900	850	1376	28.66666667	48	43
23	FLA	557	824	885	1381	28.18367347	49	61
24	COL	549	824	1030	1373	28.02040816	49	62
25	NSH	527	778	831	1305	27.76595745	47	51
26	CGY	537	809	712	1346	26.92	50	57
27	STL	429	836	915	1265	25.81632653	49	68
28	MIN	520	730	738	1250	25.51020408	49	50
29	TOR	483	757	1120	1240	25.30612245	49	57
30	BUF	413	793	832	1206	24.6122449	49	51
31	CAR	451	766	944	1217	24.34	50	61

If you compare the two tables they’re pretty similar. A little bit of movement, but the teams are generally in the same place. But the most interesting thing, which I believe I heard the broadcasters mention as well, is how many hits the Penguins are taking. With over 1,500 the Pens are almost 200 hits taken higher than the #2 team, and taking 50% more hits than the average team (974). That’s a LOT of additional hits. 

Two things I read from this:

1. Clearly the game plan against the Penguins is to hit them. When a team is fast, you hit them to slow them down. It worked for the Islanders in the playoffs last year and has been played out this season as well.
2. Maybe it’s not so surprising that the Pens have seen so many injuries. They’re taking more abuse than anyone else in the league

Digging a bit more into point 2 above, have a look at the top hit takers so far this year. Three of the top five are Penguins! Pettersson has taken 45 more hits than anyone else in the league. Almost 1 more hit taken per game than literally anyone else! Tanev takes hits just like he’ll dole them out. But damn, Marino is right up there too! Dude’s just popping up as a top player all over the place. What a steal by GMJR and good work by Kevin Stevens to give him the tip 😉 Table goes to the top 6 so we could get former Penguin and founding member of the 2014 Penguins Mumps Club, Olli Maatta.

Player	Team	Position	GP	Hits	Hits Taken	Shots Blocked	Grit	Grit/Gm
Marcus Pettersson	PIT	D	50	74	177	52	126	2.52
Kirby Dach	CHI	C	45	22	132	16	38	0.84
Charlie McAvoy	BOS	D	48	94	127	82	176	3.67
Brandon Tanev	PIT	L	50	173	126	35	208	4.16
John Marino	PIT	D	48	56	118	52	108	2.25
Olli Maatta	CHI	D	46	79	116	65	144	3.13

Amazingly Florida defenseman Kieth Yandle has played 49 games and only taken 5 hits. I take more hits than that in a 10 game season in my no-hitting beer league. 5 hits in 49 games is an accomplishment. Even Kessel has taken 29 this year. What a stat.

Amazingly, Sid has only been hit 18 times in his 22 games. Jake must have been giving him some room since he’s taken 71 in 39 games. Of all the penguins that have played most of the games it’s Kahun again at the bottom of the pile taking just 34 hits in 48 games

What’s interesting about hits taken though, is that it is more correlated with success in the standings. Look at this graph. Still pretty spread out, but at least the trend line has enough slope you could graph it with the trusty y=mx+b where m doesn’t start with 0.0, so that’s neat.

Finally, I was also able to get my hands on a penalties drawn stat.  Tanev is tops for the Pens with 13 on the season, but Geno isn’t far behind at 11. Dumoulin and Johnson have each drawn 0 which at first seems kind of crazy, but then you look at it more and only 2 defensemen have more than 2: Pettersson and Marino (4 and 7! respectively).

22 is the most penalties drawn so far this year, a tie between Winnipeg’s Nicolaj Elhers and Brad “the rat” Marchand. 

For the most part it’s all forwards drawing calls which makes sense because they’re generally the ones working for pucks in the offensive zone or coming in with speed.

TL:DR

Grit is still a useless measure, but the Penguins are good at it. Tanev has been as advertised. Kahun is softer than Kessel. The Pens take a shit ton of hits and are nothing special when it comes to drawing penalties.

Hope all you jobbers had at least a fraction of the fun reading this as I did mining the data!