Improving one key ingredient has morphed Blues into sleeper Stanley Cup contender

Welcome to part 5 of Daily Faceoff Stanley Cup Ingredients 2024-25. I’ve developed a formula consisting of seven common ingredients among recent Stanley Cup champions, using the previous 10 seasons as the sample to study. You can click here for a more detailed breakdown of the inspiration for the formula and how accurately it has predicted teams going deep in the playoffs.

So far, we’ve explored how championships correlate to team weight, top-10 scorers, top-10 goaltenders and expected goal differential. Next, we explore the link between penalty killing prowess and Stanley Cups.

Stanley Cup Ingredient #5: PENALTY KILLING EFFICIENCY

When I first launched the Ingredients series in 2021-22, the previous 10-year sample indicated strong penalty killing was far more crucial to the cooking pot than a strong power play. But as the 10-year sample shifted by one team each year over the past couple seasons, the penalty kill correlation began to weaken. That is, until last year, when it trended back upward:

Season	Champion	Penalty Kill %
2014-15	Chicago	83.4% (10th)
2015-16	Pittsburgh	84.4% (5th)
2016-17	Pittsburgh	79.8% (20th)
2017-18	Washington	80.3% (15th)
2018-19	St. Louis	81.5% (9th)
2019-20	Tampa Bay	81.4% (14th)
2020-21	Tampa Bay	84.2% (4th)
2021-22	Colorado	79.7% (15th)
2022-23	Vegas	77.4% (19th)
2023-24	Florida	82.5% (6th)

Stanley Cup correlation: Moderate

Half the Stanley Cup champions in the past decade iced a top-10 penalty kill, but the 2023-24 Panthers were the first since the 2020-21 Lightning to do so. As outlined last year, while it’s not an absolute must to have a great penalty kill, it simply can’t be your Achilles Heel – as in, it needs to at least be respectable. Every Cup champ in the past decade placed their PK within the top 20. Taking it further: it has been 33 years since any team won the Stanley Cup with a PK ranked in the bottom third of the NHL during the regular season.

Following that reverse logic: through games played March 25, which teams this season have PKs ranked bottom-third, a.k.a. 22^nd to 32^nd in the league?

Worst penalty killing efficiency, 2024-25 NHL season

22. Seattle Kraken, 76.6%
23. Boston Bruins, 76.4%
24. Vegas Golden Knights, 75.9%
25. Columbus Blue Jackets, 75.8%
26. San Jose Sharks, 74.8%
27. Calgary Flames, 74.4%
28. St. Louis Blues, 72.9%
29. Anaheim Ducks, 72.5%
30. New York Islanders, 72.1%
31. Minnesota Wild, 71.4%
32. Detroit Red Wings, 68.5%

Unsurprisingly, we see a handful of bad teams outside the top 20, including the lowly Sharks, Ducks and Kraken. It also gives pause on what to expect if bubble teams like the Blue Jackets and Flames manage to squeak in as Wildcard teams and draw high-octane opponents in Round 1. The Golden Knights fashion themselves legitimate Stanley Cup threats and should be alarmed by where they land on this list. The Red Wings had a nice surge up the standings after switching to Todd McLellan as head coach, but they never remedied their penalty kill; they were 68.9 percent before the change in 34 games, and they’re 68.1 percent in 37 games since. Their season mark of 68.5 percent is the second-lowest in NHL history.

The Wild have slowly sunk from the upper rungs of the Central Division to the Western Conference Wildcard pack; killing just 72.5 percent of penalties since Jan. 1 hasn’t helped.

The Blues are the most confounding team to appear in the bottom PK tier, but it’s deceiving. They sit fourth in the NHL in expected goals against per 60 at 5-on-5. They’re the hottest team in the league, winners of seven consecutive games and 13-2-2 since the 4 Nations Face-Off break. While their season-long PK rate of 72.9 percent is hideous, they’ve killed 80 percent of penalties during their 17-game hot streak.

In other words: the Blues have improved in many facets of the game, and nobody should want them as a first-round opponent.

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Previous instalments of Stanley Cup Ingredients 2025

Team Weight
Top-10 Scorer(s)
Top-10 Goalie
Expected Goal Differential

Next up: Stanley Cup rings

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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