The rise of empty net goals is changing the NHL
The rise of empty net goals is changing the NHL
‘Free goals’ have reached all-time highs, affecting everything from scoring races to contract negotiations.
We are in the analytics era of many sports. Strategies have drastically changed in the past decade or so as teams invest more into the use of statistics for coaching decisions and team strategy. You could probably write the exact same article about how more football games are being decided by teams trying more 4th down conversions when they used to punt.
The analytics are interesting too. From a pure statistics perspective, it actually makes sense to start pulling the goalie at about 8mins left in the third. But fans will have quite an adverse reaction to that (particularly if you do it at home). What's interesting though is that we've gone from pulling with 1min left to 3mins... I suspect that will keep increasing until it converges to the statistical sweet spot, but only a little bit each year so fans don't react badly.
The pessimist in me says defense is just not what it used to be.
The rules have consistently changed to favor offense. From 2 line pass to stricter holding and checking rules the league wants more scoring. It's not that D isn't as good it's that it's forwards "have it easier" than 20 years ago.