Islanders Penalty Kill and What that might mean for the playoffs

The Islanders penalty kill is an issue, but how big of an issue is it, and how much "fix" is needed until some relax about it?

Barring anything totally horrific, the Isles should be a playoff team, with or without their league worse penalty kill, so step one should be hopefully out of the way.

But what happens when they get to the playoffs? How will that penalty kill affect their chances of really making a run?

I looked at just the basic penalty kill percentages of the Stanley Cup Winners and the Runners up for all of the playoffs that have occurred since the lockout. This is a basic snapshot, this doesn't account for shot suppression rates or how each specific goalie did that post season while on the penalty kill, but this should still help us get an idea of where the Isles need to be with their PK% in the playoffs and whether or not we think that they are likely to improve to that number. (Also, the ranks aren't great to use because these teams obviously played longer than all of the others, some first round teams had extremely small samples, etc, but it still helps a bit).

WINNER	YEAR	PK%	RANK	RUNNER UP	YEAR2	PK%3	RANK4
Kings	2014	83.3%	9	Rags	2014	85.4%	3
Hawks	2013	90.8%	3	Bruins	2013	87.0%	4
Kings	2012	92.1%	2	Devils	2012	73.2%	13
Bruins	2011	84.4%	6	Canucks	2011	80.8%	9
Hawks	2010	83.3%	4	Flyers	2010	85.3%	2
Pens	2009	83.3%	5	Wings	2009	73.2%	14
Red Wings	2008	85.7%	4	Pens	2008	87.1%	3
Ducks	2007	86.8%	8	Sens	2007	87.9%	5
Hurricanes	2006	85.4%	6	Oilers	2006	86.1%	4

SUMMARY:

Based on just these basic numbers, and without figuring out the averages, I think the Isles need to get the PK% up to at least 84-85% during the (hopeful) playoff run.

Is that doable based on their current ~74% PK rate? I don't know. Before the last 8 game horrid stretch, the PK was looking good for the previous 15 games before that (or so).

My hope is that the young PKers like De Haan and Strome will continue to improve, even just a bit, and that guys like Nielsen, Clutterbuck and Grabner get back to the top of their PK games. Halak also has to be steady.

I'd love to have a great PK, but I also don't think that a bad PK is an indictment on how the team is ran, as it can swing pretty quickly. Those shiny possession rates and the fact that the team never takes a shift off tells me the "coaching" and "system" aren't big issues. A few clears against Detroit on Saturday and the PK might look different. That, to me, is individual player issues, not "coaching" (although I don't love Cronin).

We'll see what happens, it's still just February, lots of hockey left and lots of adjustments to be made.