A slapper, a snapper, or is it all in the wrist?

by Dirk Hoag on Oct 12, 2006 3:01 PM EDT

Here's your Thursday afternoon dose of interesting NHL information. The table below shows all 2005-2006 regular season goals (non-empty net), broken down by shot type and distance. No wonder wrap-arounds always make the highlights, they account for less than 1% of all goals! The highest frequency here is for wristers from 11-20 feet, of which 1,278 were scored accounting for 17.63% of the total.

The second table is a subset of the first, screening only for Power Play goals. The interesting fact here is that the portion of medium- to long-range goals goes up on the power play, as teams work the puck around for a clear shot from the point (also supported by the higher incidence of slapshot goals, at 32% vs. 24.5% overall). For the overall totals, about 12.6% of goals came from 40-60 feet, whereas on the power play, 17.5% of goals came from that range.
Look for most posts over the weekend, as we break down team-by-team performance in this area, including save percentage by distance and shot type...

Tweet Comment 2 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Love that stat table - but how do you score on a wrap-around from 21 to 30 feet? Or from anwyhere else but the category 1-10?

by Anonymous on Oct 13, 2006 1:47 PM EDT reply actions

I could see if someone circled behind the net and took a wrister from a steep angle, that the scorer might call that a wrap-around in the 11-20 range, but there's one in there (a 37-footer from Ken Klee) that stretches the bounds of credibility. Amongst 7,000+ goals, however, I think those outliers don't amount to much. At some point you're limited by the quality of the information available.

by The Forechecker on Oct 13, 2006 2:16 PM EDT reply actions