If Ferraro was only average, why was the PK 28th? It was the forward kill (and I owe you a correction)
Great question, and answering it honestly means correcting something I told you in the last email. I said the 28th-ranked kill was "not even mostly a skater problem" and pointed at the goaltending. When I rank the whole unit by minutes instead of eyeballing a few rows, that is not what the data says. The real answer: it was the forward penalty kill, and the goaltending was roughly a wash. Let me show you.
Everyone who killed, ranked by chances allowed
Lower expected-goals-against per 60 is better. This is who let the most happen while shorthanded:
| Killer | Pos | PK min | xGA/60 (lower=better) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orlov | D | 62 | 9.42 |
| Sherwood | F | 105 | 9.13 |
| Goodrow | F | 155 | 9.00 |
| Ostapchuk | F | 67 | 8.78 |
| Wennberg | F | 164 | 8.58 |
| Mukhamadullin | D | 69 | 7.77 |
| Dickinson | D | 64 | 7.76 |
| Ferraro | D | 268 | 7.75 |
| Dellandrea | F | 118 | 7.46 |
| Desharnais | D | 166 | 6.52 |
| Graf | F | 196 | 6.52 |
The forwards were the leak, not the defense
Split the unit in half and it is not close. The forward killers allowed roughly 8.1 expected goals per 60 as a group; the defensemen allowed roughly 7.6. The defense was merely mediocre (one good in Desharnais, three average in Ferraro, Dickinson, Mukhamadullin, one bad in Orlov). The forwards were where the chances poured in, and the damage tracks the minutes: the two biggest culprits are not the worst rate, they are the worst rate times the most ice time.
- Goodrow (155 minutes at 9.00) and Wennberg (164 minutes at 8.58) are the real anchors dragging it down. Heavy usage at bad rates is the worst combination there is, and these two ate top-of-the-unit forward minutes while bleeding chances. Add Sherwood (9.13) and Ostapchuk (8.78) and you have a forward corps that, top to bottom, could not get pucks out or pressure the points.
- Orlov had the single worst rate on the team (9.42), a marquee defenseman who was supposed to stabilize this. The only thing that limited his damage is that the staff kept his PK minutes low (62).
- Only two players were actually good: Desharnais and Graf, both at 6.52. One defenseman and, quietly, one forward. That is your entire competent penalty kill, and it was not enough to outweigh the leaky majority above it.
The correction: goaltending was a wash, not the villain
Last email I pointed at the goalies because several units allowed more goals than their chances predicted. The honest version, weighted by minutes: it nets out to roughly zero. In the four biggest forward-and-defense pairings on the kill, the goalies actually beat their expected goals against three times (the Graf, Desharnais, and Wennberg units) and trailed it once (Goodrow). The handful of "the goalie got lit up" rows I leaned on last time were tiny samples (Eklund and Leddy, 30-something minutes each) that do not move a season. So scratch the goaltending angle: this kill was 28th because it gave up too many chances, full stop, and the chances came mostly from the forwards.
The one-line answer
Nobody single-handedly sank it. It was death by committee on the forward penalty kill, with Goodrow and Wennberg the biggest drags (heavy minutes, bad rates) and Orlov the worst rate of all. Only Desharnais and Graf were genuinely good at it. The fix is not a new goalie, it is fewer kill minutes for the Goodrow and Wennberg tier, a real penalty-killing forward added, and the unit built around the two guys who could actually do it.
Shorthanded (4-on-5) on-ice expected goals against per 60, MoneyPuck 2025-26, 60-plus penalty-kill minutes. Forward-versus-defense splits are minute-weighted averages of the same. Team PK ranked 28th (75.8%) per state/counting_stats.md.
