Hey all. I've been working on this chart for a handful of days to see how the graph of our abysmal penalty differential. I've also included a couple "milestones"/dates to go along with it.

Lowest differential in the Mighty Ducks era; -26, April 7, 1999

Highest differential in franchise history; +88, October 26, 2003

Last time in the positive; +5, November 9, 2007

Lowest Mighty Ducks differential surpassed; -26, December 2, 2007

Passed -100 differential; -101, December 27, 2008

Passed -200 differential; -200, March 18, 2013

Passed -300 differential; -301, February 14, 2017

Passed -400 differential; -401, December 17, 2018

Passed -500 differential; -502, April 28, 2021

Passed -600 differential; -604, December 15, 2023

With a -1 differential in tonight's loss vs. Chicago, that puts us only 12 away from -700. We have the worst net penalty differential/60 since 1977, and the 4th worst in NHL history. At what point does this regress to the mean, if it truly is by chance? It very much feels like we've been jobbed time after time and the stats do not help to prove otherwise.

5 comments

  1. I’m new to the sport (Like, have watched the past 5 matches and am hooked but still don’t know much about the sport) so take this comment knowing that I really have no clue of the past ducks teams.  

    Did we have dirty teams in the past? What are the differences between the teams, and do they correlate with a teams overall success? 

    Obviously penalties are bad, and this doesn’t paint a good picture at all. I’m asking not because I disagree,  but more because I want to learn more.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Edit: u/DBacon1052 shared more stats which are from the NHL official site. Agreed, that’s insane!

  4. As someone who frequently complains about officiating on this sub, I’d like to add that I don’t think most of our penalties are wrong calls. Our penalties are actual penalties 99.9% of the time. The problem is we get called for fucking everything every second of every game while our opponents are very rarely upheld to the same standard. Hence these graphs.

    Tonight was a good example. Our penalties were fairly weak calls, the kind of things that happen 50 times a game against each team, but were penalties by the letter of the rule book. Meanwhile, Chicago got away with multiple obvious penalties with the ref staring at it, refusing to make the call. It is an active choice, likely discussed before and during the game. If someone says “they missed it, they’re human” it is a lie. Their goal was to give Chicago more power plays than us, no matter what, and they succeeded. I suspect this is the referee’s game plan far more often than not. Again, hence the graphs.

    It needs major reform. The NBA and MLB are in hot water right now due to betting and throwing games. I have no doubt that a thorough investigation into the NHL’s officiating would cause a lockout due to the vast majority of referees that would get put on blast and the union would refuse to send officials to games. An extreme measure to remove teams from the Cup wouldn’t really surprise me, but that would be the worst of the worst possible and require damning evidence. I also wouldn’t be surprised if such evidence exists and this league buries it.

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