NHL shooters are now aiming for quality rather than quantity

Sunday afternoon in Anaheim, it was the third a successful match where the Canadian was limited to 25 throws or less by the opponent. Since the start of the season, he has been on the 30the NHL rank for the number of shots per game.
Before the team features its famous victorious sequence, Martin St-Louis said he hoped that the Canadian accentuates his launcher volume. In fact, he had to wait for the 32e Match of the season – That of December 20 in Detroit – so that their team is in the executive team on the opposing net. The Canadian did it seven times during his victorious sequence which, precisely, ended his next visit to Detroit on January 23.
Then the bad habits returned …
That said, even if we can make a link between the quantity of shots generated by the Canadian and his results, the very concept of volume
is changing in the NHL.
See instead:
Less shots, better shots?
Saison | Buts | Shots per game | Stop rate | % Shots |
---|---|---|---|---|
2021-22 | 3,11 | 31,4 | ,907 | 9,8 |
2022-23 | 3,14 | 31,1 | ,904 | 10,1 |
2023-24 | 3,08 | 30,1 | ,903 | 10,2 |
2024-25 | 2,98 | 28,2 | ,902 | 10,5 |
The averages in the NHL In the last four seasons illustrate several trends in parallel: the goals are down and the shots are declining, except that the guards’ efficiency rates also recede. On the other hand, the launch conversion rate is upwards.
Surprisingly, these are not the higher volume shooters of the NHLlike David Pastrnak, Auston Matthews and Nathan Mackinnon, who are the standard bearers of these upwards. These stars pull a little less than in the past, as the general trend wants, but their own percentage of throws is down compared to the levels to which they are used to.
We are faced with something that appears more systemic, not in front of a phenomenon carried by a few more prolific individuals. No one yet knows with certainty what it is in, but hypotheses are nevertheless issued.
Thus, the trends observed in the table above give believe that the players sacrificed the quantity for quality. And that it is the goalkeeper who pay the price.
Before, we received from 30 to 35 throws and 10 of them were shots that helped our confidence, remembers goalkeeper Cam Talbot of the Red Wings of Detroit. I have the impression that there are no longer many of these shots. Even if it is a shot from the tip or a throw from the outside of the enclave, the guys are waiting for a player to view us, that there is a chance of deviation in front of the net or an option in our blind spot.
We see more and more often that players let a good opportunity to shoot because they are looking for a better opportunity to shoot. And they will not give up the washer as long as they have not found it. Today, we may only receive 20 to 24 throws per game, but 15 of them are dangerous opportunities to score.
In early December, at the time he expressed the wish that the Canadian shoots more in the net, St-Louis had said that it did not equal his eyes closed. The players, he said, learn to identify the most dangerous option, which is not systematically launched.
This echoes what Talbot is talking about when he mentions the right opportunities and the best opportunities.
For his part, the chief coach of the stars of Dallas, Peter Deboer, admits candidly not to know too much what is at the source of this phenomenon. But he knows one thing: players draw better than ever.
I would like to know if this trend will continue for a few years or if it is an anomaly of the first half of the season, said Deboer. But each year in training I am overwhelmed to see how much young players have powerful and heavy throws. There has been a real accent placed on equipment and shooting skills so that young people who go up there. They can really draw and touch the target in the corners.
If in general the players are better shooters, this supports the idea that they will be at the service of the best opportunity to score.
Create in chaos
This season, barely five teams recorded more than 30 games per game on average. Last season were 20.
Obviously, there is nothing unilateral. Year after year, teams like Florida Panthers and Caroline Hurricanes continue to bet on a high volume of shooting to feed their attack, even if they are not escapes a drop in their average shots since Three years.
Each team has an approach to penalties adapted to their identity. What does not really change, underlines the head coach of Pittsburgh Penguins, Mike Sullivan, is the way the attack is generally created in the NHLan attack which is, among other things, defined by heavier traffic than ever in front of the opposing goalkeeper.
If we look at the way in which the offensive is generated in today’s hockey, we see that a large part of this offensive is generated by broken games, explains Sullivan. There is a trivial shot on the outskirts or a bad angle; This is not the dangerous game. It is the following game which is dangerous, and you can create attack by making these games. I think that several league coaches are proactive in this area. We are. These goals have a high conversion rate because there are a lot of chaos.
The way of seeing St-Louis looks very much like that of Sullivan, because the Canadian pilot is also on the lookout for chaos and broken games. He sensitizes his players to the fact that when a team defends himself, the washer movement is doomed to create cracks in the opposing defensive structure. The players are good enough to quickly close the openings, but those who attack must recognize these short moments when the opposing defense vacillates, and it is important to increase the speed of execution at that time to take advantage of it.
According to Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, the guards are faced with more traffic than ever before.
Photo : The Canadian Press / Christinne Muschi
From the bottom of the upper area
One of the first observations provided by the revolution of advanced statistics was the work of Eric Tlsky, who is today the director general of the Hurricanes. One of the research in which he had participated in 2013 had made it possible to demonstrate that the teams that enter into an opposing zone in disc control generated more dangerous chances and goals than those which sent the disc at the bottom of the territory.
It changed the way of doing NHL in the following years.
However, the discharges of the puck are a return, because the offensive talent does not always have a ton of surnotes to put itself under the tooth. When the opponent does not give anything at the start of the area, the teams will not hesitate to project the disc at the bottom of the area and try to be the first to recover it.
Another aspect that seemed to fall into disuse for a few years was the value granted to the point shooting.
However, what do the rejection at the bottom of the territory and the point are common? They are intimately linked, because the movement of the washer from the bottom of the area to the blue line has become a pivotal moment to create this famous chaos of which St-Louis and Sullivan speak.
The Canadian knows something about it: in the first six weeks of the season, his defensive structure was chopped by such maneuvers.
I have the impression that the teams are more willing to get rid of the washer to get it, but once they are in check before, they apply to change aside, then bring the washer back to defender to restore possession in the offensive zone
explains Talbot.
Once it is done, most teams are trying to launch their launch. It is that once you have established your throw, you break the defensive coverage of the other team because most of the time, you are the ones who face the net and who know where the washer leaves, While the defense team focuses more on you.
Martin St-Louis
Photo: USA Today Sports via Reuters Con / Charles Leclaire
There are periods this season when the Canadian struggled to launch
as Talbot says. For what ? Because the washer movement was not fast enough. The more the team takes time to uncheck their throws, the more the shooting lines close and the sticks are neutralized.
I have the impression that, more than anything, the way of breaking the other team is not to die with the washer in the area, to keep it in motion and to draw it either, while they are not quite where they should be
propose St-Louis.
Are we going to take advantage of it or are we going to give them time to repair?
There is always a balance to find between nourishing possession of the washer and feeding the attack. Spending time in the opposing zone while keeping control of the disc is not real attack if it does not lead to frank opportunities to score. But the time to draw must correspond to an opportunity to mark, otherwise a weak shot can equal to give the disc to the other team.
And that is without counting these failed shots from the enclave that follow the band and which can be used to feed the counterattack of the other team …
The attack is more surgical than ever in the NHLand the different data that emanates from this season tend to confirm it.