It's harder than ever to get a shot on goal
My journey today started when I noticed that the Red Wings are currently averaging 25.1 shots on goal per game which would be the lowest total in franchise history since shots started being tracked in 1959-1960. However, I then happened to notice that since 2007-2008, ten of the 50 lowest shots on goal per game are from this season. Most teams are around the 14-15 game mark which is still a small sample but certainly not an insignificant one. My curiosity was officially piqued.
Focusing in on 5v5 play, I decided to examine trends in Shots For/60 (CF/60), Unblocked Shots/60 (FF/60), Shots on Goal/60 (SF/60), and Expected Goals/60 (xGF/60) with all data coming from Evolving-Hockey.
Interestingly, from the graphic above we see that CF/60 and FF/60 are comparable to last season but the median number of shots on goal per 60 at 5v5 is down about 2 shots on goal per 60. That median would represent the lowest value since the lockout shortened 2012-2013 season.
Digging in further, I took all 5v5 shots and separated them into the percentage that are blocked, percentage that miss the net, and percentage that are on goal. The result is quite interesting.
After 16 years where the percentage of shots on goal varied by no more than 2.5%, all of a sudden we saw a massive drop in 2023-2024 followed by a similar drop again this season. The percentage of 5v5 shots making it to the net is down 5% from just two seasons ago.
Are defenses packing the slot area and forcing more blocked shots/missed shots?
Are bigger goalies forcing shooters to “snipe” too much and ultimately miss the net?
Is it something else entirely? I genuinely don’t know.
It’s still early in the season so this could all be noise from a small sample but I am very interested to trend this out to see if it continues and would welcome thoughts from people on what they think might be going on.
I was just looking at this last week and wondering the same thing. I remember something Sean Shapiro said during the playoffs about goalies letting in "bad" goals from sharp angles and shooters taking more shots from those areas because with the reverse VH becoming so dominant those shots aren't as bad as they used to be. I've also seen some stuff suggesting that shooters today grew up with the composite sticks and are better at utilizing their capabilities, so they try more low percentage shots than previous years. I think both those trends would fit with the general idea of shooters trying to snipe and missing the net more.
I also noticed that after several years of there being more actual goals than expected goals every season, that trend suddenly reversed in 2022-23 and there have been more expected goals than goals each season since then.
Lastly, I wonder if the EDGE tracking stuff has had any impact on the RTSS tracking. I think whatever algorithm they use to determine a shot attempt from the tracking data is more generous than the scorers, and I wonder if the scorers were told to be looser with their definition of a miss or a block after the first season with the tracking data.
Excuse my rambling comment...I've definitely noticed, anecdotally, and all the random games I've watched this year. That teams seem to have an increased penchant for clogging the slot centrally as well as wide out to the dots. It really feels like defenses are more than ever trying to push offenses wide. If I had to purely speculate without having done any deep data investigation on this, my guess is that teams are privy to the fact that the last several years have been built upon huge increases in speed and shot volume pretty much across the league. Or at least shot attempts. It really feels like early on this year there's much more of an overall focus in the league on shot suppression.
If I throw in another anecdote, it also feels like a lot of teams are now looking for the "perfect" shot, but also much more willing to take what's given to them. If you combine those two things, it probably means more low danger chances. I'd started to pull some chance type data recently, but ran into a snag and haven't gone back to it.
But one thing I started to think more about recently was if or how shot blocking as a percentage of overall attempts played into this. Your data suggests quite an increase, which seems to align with what the eye test shows. But why? Teams clearly didn't suddenly get bad at taking shots.
So I did my annual look at player size. As was noted, goalies are bigger than ever, which may lead to players looking to get more picky with their shot selection, possibly leading to more off target shots trying to pick corners, expose the reverse VH, etc. But what's interesting is that despite the fact that player height has started to tick back up over the last few years after a precipitous dip a decade ago, player weight continues to decrease on average. If I continue this line of thinking into my speculation, let's wait to move around combined with a slight uptick in height. Likely means improved lateral movement and directional changes from players. This is probably also starting to translate to players getting much better at clogging shooting lanes. And I'm sure as equipment continues to decrease in weight, it's only getting easier than ever to move a stick where you want it.
Anyway, lots of rambling speculation, but I genuinely think player size and weight is really factoring a lot into this. And it makes total sense... We got lots of small fast players because they could easily exploit large defenses that were more lumbering and slow moving. And in recent years we started to get significantly more mobile defensemen making their way into the league not only offensively but also defensively. There simply aren't that many giant slow space clogging d-men out there, With space being taken up by significantly better skaters these days.
Sure, offensive talent is going to create space however it can, but it's entirely possible that early season returns are indicating that our offenses haven't adjusted to more mobile defenses yet. More mobile defense can move the game further away from goal, clog a lane a lot easier, and completely changes the transition game (in the zN, but also dump n chase puck retrieval, etc.).
Can't wait to see how things evolve over the next few months after this early season data. Definitely keep your data set saved and isolated, Prashanth! Would love to see how it evolves in segments over time