Why Goal Scorers Bury the Puck

Dan Rosen – staff writer for NHL.com – posted an awesome article on 4/7/10 about the NHL scoring race between Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, and Steven Stamkos titled Chasing Rocket: Why Ovie, Sid and Stamkos Score.  While the article goes into specifics about each player’s style of play, what interested me was where they were scoring their goals from on the ice.  In my previous post about the Box Plus One Defensive Zone Coverage, I touched on the importance of defending your “home base” first.  As a reminder, here’s the area I’m referring to:

Now take a look at that area compared to where each player is scoring the majority of their goals from:  (Note – since these files are property of NHL.com, I can’t post them directly to the blog, so I have to link them)

Alex Ovechkin:  http://cdn.nhl.com/images/upload/2010/04/ovi-chart-LG.jpg

Sidney Crosby: http://cdn.nhl.com/images/upload/2010/04/crosby-chart-LG-mod.jpg

Steven Stamkos: http://cdn.nhl.com/images/upload/2010/04/stam-chart-LG.jpg

So what can we learn from these great goal scorers? To me, it’s one simple thing: don’t pass up opportunities to shoot the puck in the prime scoring areas of the ice.  Now, that’s not to say there aren’t times when it’s right to make a pass here – but too often I see players try to chase that elusive “perfect scoring opportunity” – 99% of the time, it won’t happen. Goal scorers score by shooting the puck and shooting it with a purpose! ….oh, and it doesn’t hurt to get in the habit of driving to the net and stopping in front for a rebound!

3 Replies to “Why Goal Scorers Bury the Puck”

  1. Great post, this is great.. it covers the top three highest goal scorers in the league and gives a bit of insight into their game, plus a few tips for those who love to score (myself included)

    It is funny that I knew that a lot of Stamkos’s goals would be from the right side and one timers (just from watching all the highlights. Crosby doesnt make the highlight reels as often as Ovie because most of Crosby’s goals are garbage goals. Then Ovie seems to score from anywhere

    Thanks for posting!

  2. emphasis on SHOOT WITH A PURPOSE. They say when Rocket Richard shot the puck to score he was trying to put it through the netting just in case. SHOOT WITH A PURPOSE

  3. Ovechkin has 0 backhanders. But now you have to show some clips of Jason Spezza, Todd Bertuzzi, or Valteri Filppula for examples of how passing up the shot up in the main scoring area is a bad idea.

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