The Contrarian looks into why fewer penalties are being called in the postseason…

John Steigerwald of The Indiana Gazette wrote an article called "Commentary: Maybe Crosby should just quit" on May 20, 2014. He suggests that Sidney Crosby mimic what Mario Lemieux did back after the 1996-97 season completed and announce his retirement in protest to the way the game is being officiated.

He references one of Don Cherry's "Coaches Corner" clips about how Crosby was being taken advantage of and that there were at least five non-calls in that video sample alone. Cherry as always blames it on the instigator rule but Steigerwald sidesteps that argument to focus on the perception of what we expect versus what is actually better for the game.

We are going to try and debunk some arguments but to do so here are two tables that track Penalty Minutes Per Game and Goals Per Game from the 1989-90 season to the present one (all the stats are compiled from NHL.com): 

The Unadjusted columns include all penalty minutes. Adjusted takes only the minors, bench minors and the majors. I make this distinction only to highlight the penalties that could make a difference as potential power play opportunities. Misconducts do not help with potential power play time.

The first thing that we will tackle is the myth about the instigator rule and its negative impact. Here is an article from NHL.com, "Evolution of instigator penalty altered game". The rule always existed but was strengthened before the 1992-93 season in an effort to eliminate bench clearing brawls and group fighting.

In the 1991-92 regular season, there were about 10,000 penalty minutes handed out as misconducts and game misconducts (subtract the Unadjusted PIM value from the Adjusted PIM). From the 1992-93 season onward the value slowly drops, to about 3,400 misconduct minutes registered this current season. Similar conclusions are shown with the playoff season stats as well.

One of the arguments against the instigator rule was that it would lead to an increase of stick work or other minor penalties. If you look at the Adjusted PIM / GM values that doesn't hold true. The average PIM / GM value drops.

Another thing to point out is that from 1991-92 to 1992-93 there was expansion and the total number of games played went up by 208, yet the PIM / GM went down which seems counter intuitive. Also counter intuitive is the fact that there are about half as many penalties called per game now (19.09) than there were in 1991-92 (38.20) even though there are 350 more games played.

I also look at the playoff statistics here as well and the PIM / GM values drop even though there are a similar amount of games played each season.

So maybe Steigerwald has a point that the stupidity has come back. Maybe Crosby should retire in protest. Maybe not.

Mario Lemieux retired after the 1996-97 season and it did not change a thing in the big picture. There was a slight bump the next season in PIM but in the end the values kept coming down. In fact, when the 2005-06 season started up and the referees called the game by the book, people like Don Cherry started screaming that there were too many penalties called. He and his followers cried out to let the players play. Funny thing is that there were more penalties called in the 1996-97 season, the one where Lemieux decided he had enough so he retired, than in 2005-06.

A retiring Crosby won't help correct the game which kind of brings me back to Steigerwald's other point about expectations. No one ever laments, "Let the ref's call the game the way they did in the early 90's". What you get is someone preaching about letting the players play and then they complain when penalties are not called on certain specific plays.

Back to Crosby and those non-calls. Let's assume that penalties were actually called, that does not mean that the Penguins would have scored or even won those games. Yes, the more power play opportunities a team gets the better its chances are in scoring and, therefore, in winning. If we look at the Adjusted PIM / GM values for this current regular and playoff season they are about the same, 19.09 and 19.29. The goals per game (G / GM) are about the same too 5.34 and 5.49. (One more point about penalty minutes and goals, there are about the same number of G / GM scored now as were in the 2002-03 season and yet there were about 9,000 less PIMs this season)

So what happened to the Penguins between the regular season and the playoffs isn't about a few non-calls to Crosby. They did not play well as a team for the last couple of playoffs and that is why Ray Shero was fired.

Some people will say that Malkin should be traded, see Matt Larkin's article in The Hockey News, "Why an Evgeni Malkin for Alex Ovechkin trade makes sense", others will wonder about Crosby's health "Cox: Bylsma lying about Crosby's health", and a few will continue to say everything is fine "Sidney Crosby Is Still Dominant Despite Dismal Playoff Scoring Numbers" by Dave Lozo of the Bleacher Report.

I am more inclined to see Malkin be traded away. Not because I think he is the problem but more like that there are two roosters in the hen house. He needs to go somewhere to be the unquestioned leader of 'his' team and Crosby to be the leader of the Penguins. When either one was down due to injury the other always upped their game. Together they are fine but not as commanding as when they are independent of each other.

I won't speculate as to where Malkin will or could go but there will be many teams interested if he is in fact available. If the Penguins do trade him, there will be an immense amount of pressure on them to become a better team and prove it to the world by winning another Stanley Cup.

In an effort to help, I offer Pittsburgh a quote by Fuzzy Zoeller, "If the pressure is getting to you, whistle. In a barely audible way. It's the best way I know of to let go of tension. Music gets your mind off the situation, and the act of whistling melts the tension out of your body."