What The Heck Are Hockey Lines?

 If the Kraken are like most NHL teams, they will organize their personnel thusly:

• 4 groups of 3 forwards: Each group has a designated center, left winger, and right winger.
• 3 groups of 2 defensemen: Each group has a designated left defenseman and right defenseman.

The forward groups are called lines. The defense groups are called pairings (and sometimes lines, too). The Kraken will designate a first line/pairing (starters), second line/pairing, third line/pairing. The players in each designated group will always be on the ice together (barring in-game injury, penalties, etc.)

This is all new to me, and I'm trying to get a handle on how it works. Here's what I think I've figured out.

The Top Players Are Only Out There 1/3 of the Time!

The foremost fact of interest is that most of the time, the best players aren't on the ice. 

Sidney Crosby, one of the very few NHL players I could name as of two weeks ago, has averaged 20 minutes, 50 seconds on ice per game during his career. As each game consists of 3 20-minute periods, that means Crosby is on ice barely 1/3 of the game.

The Most Individual Ice Time Usually Goes To Defenders

The group that plays the most is the first defensive pairing. If you look at average time on ice during the 2020-21 NHL season, the top 46 players were all defenseman. The Kraken's top defensive pair will typically play at least 20 minutes on ice per game.

The top defender will get slightly more ice time, as he'll be the sole defender on the Krakens' power play unit.

The group that plays the second-most will often be ... the second defensive pairing. For most teams, their second defensive unit gets as much or more ice time than their top offensive players. Not always! It depends on how heavily a team leans on their top-scoring unit and also how often they find themselves on the power play (about which more below).

Offensive Groups: 18-15-12-10

As far as I can tell, that's the general distribution of minutes for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines of a typical NHL team. 

This is interesting to divvy up and think about. 

You could say: "83% of the minutes will go to the top 3 lines!"

You could also say: "62% of the minutes go to the bottom 3 lines!"

But the top lines are expected to — and typically do — produce goals at a higher rate. Per Hockey-Reference data, here's how average goals per 60 minutes break down based on average time on ice:

18-20+ minutes Average Time on Ice (1st liners): 1.144 Goals/60 minutes

15-17 minutes Average Time on Ice (2nd liners): .861 Goals/60 minutes

> 15 minutes Average Time on Ice (3rd/4th liners): .677 Goals/60 minutes

Put another way: For every minute that they're out there, your first line should be twice as likely to score a goal.

Hockey Has Special Teams When There's a Power Play

Averaged out over the entire season, there are about 6 penalty situations per NHL game, taking up an average of 18 minutes per game. That's 30% of a 60 minute game. 

NFL special teams account for around 20% of game snaps, so hockey special teams are slightly more important.

The big difference is that hockey special teams aren't nearly as specialized as NFL ones. There's no hockey equivalent to a punter, long snapper, gunner, etc, who might only ever play on special teams and never in typical game play. 

Power Play Offense: Teams typically designate two power play offense groups. Teams are increasingly going with 4 forwards and 1 defenseman, but some still prefer 3 forwards and 2 defensemen. 

Power Play Defense (a.k.a. Power Kill): On the power kill, you're down to four players. This unit consists of 2 defensemen and 2 forwards. 

A Final Word: Goalies Are Like 1880s Baseball Pitchers But The Kraken Might Be Different

Most teams have a top goalie who starts about 75% of games. And hockey goalies almost never get substituted for. 

But! The Kraken's surprise signing of top free agent G Philipp Grubauer, on top of their previous signing of G Chris Driedger, gives them two goalies making big bucks. Both will get substantial time; GM Ron Francis pointed out that the Kraken's heavy travel schedule as a Pacific Northwest team makes having two top goalies a priority. (Maybe one will fly ahead to get an extra day of acclimation in a new city, like baseball starting pitchers sometimes do?) 

So perhaps a 60/40 split of starts is more likely for Grubauer and Driedger, and it will be interesting to see if they choose to start them based on a set schedule or if there are certain matchups one or the other may be best suited for.