On Frozen Blog

In the cover story of the Nov. 21 THN, Ken Campbell examines the dos and don’ts of shootouts. THN analyzed 230 attempts in 28 shootouts from the season’s start through November 6. The piece’s most startling observation arrives early and is telling: “Few teams do anything more than pay cursory attention to the shootout.”

Only eight or ten New York Rangers, Campbell claims, typically linger after practice formally ends and join a shootout contest, in which the stakes are supremely high: bottles of orange juice. Campbell observes:

Don’t these people realize each team averaged 10 games that went to a shootout last season? Do your homework, study the competition, be completely prepared to win the extra point and you might win 7 of those 10 games. Fly by the seat of your pants, go with a hunch and see what happens and you win 3 of those 10 shootouts.

And what would those extra shoout wins do for the team that did yeoman’s research? Well, if you’re the Maple Leafs, Atlanta Thrashers or Vancouver Canucks last year, that would’ve been enough to just get you into the playoffs. And just getting into the playoffs last year for the Edmonton Oilers translated into 11 extra home games.”

Campbell then goes on to recommend that shooters “go high” ‚Äî the preponderance of butterfly netminders across the league means that almost all low shots get stopped.

“Top left has a better success rate,” he reports, “but more total goals have been going in high on the glove side.”

Additionally, dekers in general fare better than shooters.Those who shot the puck scored 33 goals on 126 attempts in this research period, for a 26 percent success rate. Dekers, however, scored 34 goals on just 104 attempts for a 32 percent success rate.

“A good backhand deke is tough to stop,” says Maple Leafs netminder Jean-Sebastian Aubin. “The bottom line is if you’re too deep in your net on the backhand deke, you’re done. It’s a goal for sure.” Backing up Aubin’s claim is THN’s research: left-handed shooters who went with a backhand deke scored on 38 percent of their shots (10-for-26), and right-handed backhand deke shots scored on half of theirs.

“In all,” THN reports, “players who deked and went high either forehand or backhand scored 20 goals on 48 shots for a success rate of 41.7 percent.”

Campbell also recommends that shooters have a backup plan, a plan B, and in what I’d wished was a much broader survey of the league’s high-profile shootout marksmen, Daniel Briere of Buffalo never has an idea of what he’s going to do before reaching the hashmarks while Mats Sundin and Simon Gange set a course before skating toward center ice and never waver.

Campbell’s piece also traced the shot success rate of players by nationality. To the extent possible, go with Finns, who succeed on 53.3 percent of their shots. Russians score 31 percent of the time; Canadians just under 28 percent; Swedes are smack at 30 percent; Czechs about the same; and Americans are at 23.3 percent.

One glaring omission from the survey ‚Äî admittedly not quantifiable ‚Äî was the role that shooters skating with speed plays in the scheme of things. There is a direct correlation between speed or momentum and shot velocity, but even more basic, what’s easier for a goalie defend, a shooter presenting him with more or less reaction time?