Skip to main content

Shooting Percentage presented in a brand new way

The latest entry in this series of 21st Century Hockey Analysis covers shooting percentage broken down by range and shot type. For instance, during the 2005-2006 regular season (again excluding empty net goals), over 73,000 shots were fired at an overall scoring rate of 9.88%. Wrist shots from 21 to 30 feet went in slightly less than 10% of the time, but closing that distance to the 11-20 foot range almost doubled the shooter's chances of scoring. Interestingly, slapshots from 10 feet or less don't score significantly more often than the 11-20 foot range, whereas snap shots do indeed jump from 20% to 25%. Perhaps the lesson there is that a quick shot when in close is preferable to winding up for a big blast.

Coming later this week, we'll break down the best and worst shooters in the league against these criteria, and after that, we'll see which goalies have particular strengths and weaknesses as well. Stay tuned!

Popular posts from this blog

My goals for 2011: Make sports blogging pay off

In my never-ending quest to figure out a model for making what is currently my hobby & passion into something bringing in at least a side income, I've decided to set a couple goals for myself to complete during the rest of 2011. Simply put, I plan to publish two products over the next few months, which I hope will provide real value to hockey fans, and that they'll be willing to pay for. Will it succeed? Will it fail? The only way to know is to put my nose to the grindstone and get these two things done (I'll keep the details under my hat for now). The important thing to note is that these efforts are in addition to anything I'm doing over at OTF . Taking away what we're doing over there and asking people to pay for it is a surefire lose-lose all the way around, because if there's anything we've learned over the last few years, it's that people love to read about sports, but only for free. I'm also optimistic about Hockey Gea...

My Letter To Gary

Dear Mr. Bettman, When the announcement was made a few weeks ago that Jim Balsillie had entered into an agreement to purchase the Nashville Predators, speculation immediately began that a relocation to South Ontario would come in short order, and many hockey fans in the Nashville area jumped to the conclusion that we'd see a "Major League" scenario, whereby the new owner would deliberately undermine local support of the team so as to trigger the escape clause in the team's arena lease. As for myself, I decided to give Mr. Balsillie the benefit of the doubt - surely as a lifelong hockey fan and player, he wouldn't do such a thing after acquiring one of the best young teams in the game, with the Stanley Cup potentially within reach. I've waited and watched over recent weeks, and was initially encouraged by Balsillie's promise to field a competitive team, giving GM David Poile an ample budget to put together the best team possible. His legal representative ...

Cheer up, it's the holidays...

Why is it that various media outlets continue trying to put their own spin on the "what's wrong with the NHL" story? Our latest example comes from The Hockey News , in a piece by Jay Greenburg entitled, "Excitement Level On The Decline." Take the opening sentence: Attendance is down and yet still up from before the lockout, leaving it arguable whether buildings in New Jersey and Florida are half-full or half empty. It's no surprise that attendance is down from last season, particularly if you compare the first half of 2005-06 to the first half of this year. Coming out of the lockout, there were legions of fans starved to see the on-ice product, particularly in light of the massive rule changes. This year is more indicative of business as usual, so the fact that the league is above pre-lockout levels is a positive. Toss in the projection that overall revenues are increasing despite a 1% decrease in attendance, and I'd say that paying fans have come back ...