League Leaders: Takeaways, Penalties Drawn and Rebounds

Yesterday, I listed the league leaders in deflections since the lockout. Three other statistics that may convey offensive ability around the net are offensive zone takeaways, offensive zone penalties drawn and rebounds. Let's go through the league leaders in order.

There aren't a tremendous number of takeaways recorded in general, and we have to look at only road takeaways to eliminate home rink bias. If we further restrict takeaways to the area below the faceoff dots, we end up with rather small numbers:

This is a slightly different list than our deflection leaders – there are some guys here who spend a lot of time in front of the net like Ryan Smyth, but there are also players like Alexander Frolov who have a reputation for not going into the corners and not checking people. Yet he comes away with a lot of pucks.

What about penalties drawn in the offensive zone below the face-off dots? This list includes only non-coincidental penalties:

There are a lot of familiar names here – guys who draw penalties in general, like Crosby and Brown. And, of course, there's Ryan Smyth again. I'm reminded that Dustin Brown is a big hitter – so is this the same group of players who hit a lot in the offensive zone below the face-off dots?

There isn't much overlap at all – Cole and Brown. The big hitters aren't necessarily the kinds of guys who have the speed and offensive skill to force defensemen to take penalties.

And finally, what about rebounds? Here we see a much more traditional group of scorers, with Ryan Smyth dropping to 31st overall. Next time – wraparounds…