How quickly are goals scored after zone entries in the Stanley Cup Final?
Extended zone time is great, but it's usually the quick strikes that make the difference.
Tuesday could be the final game of the NHL season.
The Vegas Golden Knights are up 3-1 with a chance to close out the Florida Panthers and hoist the Stanley Cup on home ice.
Through the first four games of the series, the teams have combined for 26 goals, a 17-9 edge for Vegas. Which feels indicative of the play on the ice, Vegas is and has been the better team, Florida — while a great story — has been overmatched, even for stretches of the game the Panthers won in overtime.
If (or when) Vegas win the Stanley Cup, there will be narratives about how they were built. How the big defensive core was too big, too strong to breakdown and how in the playoffs they wore teams into the ground, while being able to withstand that wear-and-tear themselves.
It’s not untrue, it’s part of Vegas team design, and the willingness to simply allow bad shots from bad area while blocking a ton of them is something I applaud.
But another key lesson from this series, and hockey in general, is how important it is to capitalize quickly after a zone entry.
Of the 26 goals in the series, 17 have been scored seven seconds or less after a zone entry at all strengths. On average, a goal is scored 9.34 seconds after an entry, a number that’s inflated by special teams.
Looking at 5-on-5 play, there have been 18 goals in the Stanley Cup Final. Those goals have been scored on average 6.88 seconds after the puck enters the zone. Thirteen of the 18 have come with less than 7 seconds of zone time.
The Golden Knights have 11 goals at 5-on-5, they are averaging 7.63 seconds between entry and goal. Florida has seven 5-on-5 goals and is averaging 5.71 seconds between entry and goal.
It makes sense. A team is most vulnerable right after a zone entry, whether it’s a clean entry, where the defensemen are still moving, or a dump-in and retrieval, it’s the moments of chaos that lead to quality chances.
Game 4 was a good example of this. All five goals were at even strength, four of them were scored five seconds or sooner after a zone entry.
Here is the time between zone entry and the puck crossing the goal line as tracked (crudely) by me during this series. For goals that started on a sequence with an offensive zone face-off, I counted the offensive zone face-off as point of entry.
Power plays are expectedly a more drawn out process.
Teams are patient, they work the puck around and fans yell “shoooooot” because they get sick of waiting for a shot.
Excluding Vegas’ empty-net power play goal, which was shot from the neutral zone by Reilly Smith in Game 1, the Golden Knights are averaging 18.2 seconds between zone entry and goal this series with the man advantage.
That includes a 34-second stretch in Game 3 of extended zone time before Vegas took a temporary 2-1 lead.
The Panthers haven’t scored on the power play yet this series, but do have a 6-on-5 goal. That goal, which tied and forced overtime in Game 3, came after 23 seconds of sustained zone time.
When you have an extra skater, you take time to find the extra man, it makes sense. And despite being down a man, shorthanded teams are often pretty good at defending entries, because they aren’t thinking about offensively going the other way.
None of this is rocket science/brain surgery (pick your cliche) but it’s a good reminder that sustained zone time, wearing a team down, is important but it’s usually not the action that leads directly to points on the scoreboard. To steal a Vegas-style cliche, think of sustained zone time like the body shots in a boxing match, simply setting the stage for the quick strikes that really count.