When it comes to scoring more goals, what matters more? The shot quality or the shot quantity?
Part 1 - Shot Quality vs Shot Quantity.
Shot Quantity vs Shot Quality?
Over the past few decades, there has been a large shift in thinking as our collective statistical knowledge has improved. Historically, the scoreboard shot count would be the go-to barometer to better understand which team was controlling play. Simple, right? The more the better.
Yet - obviously - not all shots are created equal.
Research has shown that save percentage + shooting percentage are much more important than the shot differential (difference in shots) in correlating with wins.
Puck possession time (#1)
Save percentage (#2)
Shooting percentage (#3)
Team with fewer penalties (#4)
The team with more faceoff wins (#5)
Shot differential (#6)
The team with more hits (#7)
Shot Location
Shots from farther distances and low angles have a smaller chance of resulting in goals. There is a reason why every coach tells players to get to the net. This area around the net is commonly referred to as either the “House” or “Home-plate” given its shape.
When looking at shooting percentages by location we can see that higher shooting percentages line up nicely with where the “house” is located. The below graphic is from HockeyViz by math professor-turned-hockey-analytics-guru Micah Blake McCurdy.
It’s clear that for every point shot there is about 1-3% chance of scoring compared to 5-15% inside of the “house”.
To put it another way, per 100 shots taken:
Point shots register 1-3 goals
“House” shots register 5-15 goals
A normal hockey game has around 20-40 shots on goal per team. Therefore, one would expect a team shooting exclusively point shots to score 0.2-1.2 goals (more on that in Part Two). Comparing that to a team with nothing but “house” shots and it’s not even close: 1-6 goals.
It doesn’t take a math genius like Micah to understand that adding quality is more important than adding quantity.
Example
Every coach and player has heard the phrase “Go to the net, it’s where all the goals are.” It might still be the most underrated coach phrase of all time. Let’s take a look at a recent game.
Taking a look at all of the shots attempted from Mikael Nahabedian we can notice the VGK had a greater focus on taking shots from the “house”.
For NHL standards these shot locations were a bit scattered around the ice… all of the goals though??? They all came from the “house”. Quality triumphed over quantity.
This is not a one-off event. Another team that was often out-shot during the 2019-20 season was the NYI. Their series win over the Washington Capitals illustrates clearly that a team that focuses on getting quality shots can (and did) triumph over a team that had more, but lower quality, shots.
The NYI got out-shot in a major way, generating only 31% of the total shots between the two teams. Yet the expected goals they would score was higher than the Capitals. Quality > Quantity.
Increasing shot quality is the most important factor when increasing goal scoring.
Get to the net, it’s where all the goals are. Now find out why Point Shots Suck.
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