Should NHL teams risk icing to shoot for the empty net?
Let's look at some of the numbers.
This is a topic that’s been rattling around in my head since I watched the Feb. 23 game in person between the Detroit Red Wings and Anaheim Ducks.
Detroit led 4-2 with less than three minutes remaining, but Anaheim scored twice with the goalie pulled to tie it and force overtime.
The Red Wings eventually won in overtime on a breakaway goal by Patrick Kane, but it felt like a lost opportunity for Detroit, especially if their playoff hopes are decided, again, by a tiebreaker on regulation wins.
And the Ducks’ regulation comeback started after Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider shot for the empty net from his own zone, missing wide left for an icing with 2:40 remaining.
Anaheim won the ensuing faceoff, held possession, and scored to make it 4-3 with 2:16 remaining.
This gets to our question: When the opposing net is empty, is it worth risking an icing and an ensuing defensive-zone faceoff to shoot from beyond your own red line?
Or put it this way: Do you take the risk of a faceoff to end the game with an empty-netter?
According to both Red Wings coach Todd McLellan and Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer, players have the green light to take that risk.
“You know that’s changed over the last decade,” DeBoer said. “I think it’s green light now because of the skill level on the ice. I think if you have time and the puck on your stick and a chance to end the game, I think it’s green light. That used to be a cardinal sin, so I think that whole mindset has changed.”
“I have no problem with that, because if you miss the net, you’re buying us time to breathe, and nobody really thinks about that,” McLellan said. “I know it’s coming back into our end, but should we not shoot it down there and start flubbing it around our own net? We could be in there for another minute anyhow, and can’t breathe. So that game management (shooting) was fine by me.”
That’s the coaching view, and it’s coming from two coaches that have worked in the league for close to two decades.
Now let’s look at some of the data.
With the help of Prashanth Iyer, I took a look at all of the shots taken this season in the NHL from further than 100 feet in 6-on-5 situations.
It should be noted we didn’t look at all icings at 6-on-5. Remember, the question here is should players risk icing and shoot for the empty net, not whether icings are good or bad.
It also should be noted this is pulled using official NHL play-by-play data; any judgment call of what a shot is here has been determined by league officials.
The full data set is also available here to anyone that wants to dive in themselves:
So as March 1, there had been 239 shots taken from more than 100 feet in 6-on-5 situations.
Of those 239 shots, 85 ended up as goals, a 35.5 percent shooting percentage.
Of those that missed the net, 125 ended up as icing and 29 weren’t followed by a whistle — typically meaning shooting team beat out the icing.
So this season, when a player shoots from further than 100 feet, 53.2 percent of the time it ends with a face-off back in their defensive zone.
In theory, you could use that data point as an analyst or coach and inform your team they shouldn’t shoot, that more than half the time it’s putting you back on the defensive.
But what about the results of those 125 icings? How often does icing the puck in the 6-on-5 ultimately hurt a team?
For that, I went through all 125 icings and looked at whether a team allowed a goal off the ensuing face-off, looking specifically at whether the opposing team scored within the next 30 seconds of continuous play.
And it’s happened three times this season.
On October 19, when the Edmonton Oilers scored to make it 3-1 after Evgeny Dadonov shot for the empty net and missed from 136 feet.
On January 11, when Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak iced the puck on a shot from 118 feet with 19 seconds remaining and then the Florida Panthers won the ensuing face-off and tied the game at 3-3 with 3 seconds left on the clock.
And the prior mentioned incident on February 23, where Seider iced the puck on a shot from 167 feet when Detroit was up 4-2, which led to a goal by Anaheim on the ensuing possession and face-off win.
So of 239 shot attempts at the empty net from beyond the red line, only three have ended in net-negative results for the offending team. Or to put it this way, this season 1.2 percent of the time shooting from your own end of the ice has ended poorly.
Which also means 98.8 percent of the time a shot at the empty net, which could have been an icing, has either been a positive or neutral result for the shooting team.
Certainly interested to hear any/all thoughts on this from others.
This is a great example of using data to not overreact to an anecdote. Sean saw an icing play come back to bite a team that he was watching with his own two eyes. Then, digging into the data, it's one of only three times that's happened all year in the entire 32-team league? Yea, that's the challenge of anecdotal fallacy.
The “more than half the time it’s icing” argument isn’t really an accurate reflection of the data and needs to be played out. You need to factor “neutral” outcomes - which is to say - defending team possession on a post icing draw isn’t an adverse outcome. Basically what the data tells me is - 1 in 3 you end the game. About half the time it’s an icing. And less than 1 % of those wind up as a goal by the trailing team. It’s more than Mac and those guys saying we got better shooters - although there’s probably some truth to that. It’s numbers.