"That's Not Hockey": On Shootouts and Penalty Shots
By Trey Elder Aug 7, 2024
Every so often I see an article or social media post that brings up the topic of the NHL rulebook, or more specifically which rules should be changed. One of the changes I see suggested most consistently is abolishing the shootout from regular season games, in favor of either a longer overtime period or simply reintroducing ties into the league again. Since being implemented at the start of the 2005-2006 season as part of the changes to the league made post-lockout, about 10% of all games have been decided by a shootout. That percentage used to be even higher until the NHL implemented 3-on-3 overtime. Since then, shootout attempts per season have remained relatively constant at around 60% of what they once were.
Total Shootout Attempts by Season
Note that the 2012-2013 season was only 48 games due to a lockout, and the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons were shortened due to COVID-19.
Opinions on the shootout have always been mixed, with even the best players like Connor McDavid calling it “a crappy way to finish a game.” There are plenty of reasons why players and fans might want the shootout to end, and some of them are valid. However, one argument for getting rid of the shootout that I do not subscribe to is that “it’s not part of the game.” This is the notion that the shootout is something so individual, so unlike everything else that happens in a hockey game, that having it ultimately decide the outcome of a game would go against the team spirit of the game.
Top 20 Skaters by Shootout Percentage
Minimum 40 Shootout Attempts
| Shooter | Attempts | Goals | Shooting Percentage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Artemi Panarin | 45 | 27 | 60.0% |
| 2 | Slava Kozlov | 46 | 27 | 58.7% |
| 3 | Erik Christensen | 55 | 29 | 52.7% |
| 4 | Jonathan Toews | 111 | 53 | 47.7% |
| 5 | T.J. Oshie | 105 | 50 | 47.6% |
| 6 | Frans Nielsen | 104 | 49 | 47.1% |
| 7 | Brayden Point | 41 | 19 | 46.3% |
| 8 | Mats Zuccarello | 80 | 37 | 46.2% |
| 9 | Aleksander Barkov | 63 | 29 | 46.0% |
| 10 | Tyler Seguin | 70 | 32 | 45.7% |
| 11 | Jakob Silfverberg | 47 | 21 | 44.7% |
| 12 | P.A. Parenteau | 46 | 20 | 43.5% |
| 13 | Brad Boyes | 90 | 39 | 43.5% |
| 14 | Wojtek Wolski | 58 | 25 | 43.1% |
| 15 | Andy McDonald | 49 | 21 | 42.9% |
| 16 | Radim Vrbata | 105 | 45 | 42.9% |
| 17 | Evgeny Kuznetsov | 68 | 29 | 42.6% |
| 18 | Tyler Bozak | 54 | 23 | 42.6% |
| 19 | Alexander Steen | 52 | 22 | 42.3% |
| 20 | Ilya Kovalchuk | 71 | 30 | 42.3% |
In a player poll from 2005, The Hockey News asked NHLers what they thought of the recently-implemented shootout. Some players said they liked it, and the majority said that as long as it brought excitement for the fans, they were okay with it. But some, like two-time Stanley Cup champion Jamie Langenbrunner, did not approve. "It could determine if a team gets into the playoffs and then there is no shootout in the playoffs. Those are huge points. It shouldn't come down to that. The playoff race is always so close. Points from shootouts are not the way to settle eighth or ninth place. Those points can make a huge difference. That's not hockey."
While I don’t agree with his assessment, I can totally empathize with Langenbrunner’s opinion, right up until his final three words. While a shootout attempt may feel like a novelty, it is hockey. Because there is another part of the game where the exact same action, an isolated one-on-one matchup between a skater and a goaltender, occurs during the course of play, and I’m not talking about breakaways. I’m talking about penalty shots.
Penalty shots can be called for a variety of infractions but are most commonly awarded when an attacking player is fouled from behind on a breakaway in such a manner that deprives them of a reasonable scoring opportunity. They used to be pretty rare; from 1970 to 2000 the entire league averaged only 18 penalty shots per season, which in today’s 32-team league would equate to about one every 73 games. But in the 2000s, as the game became more skilled and the two-line pass rule was abolished, breakaways became more commonplace and thus, so did penalties on breakaways. In 2005-2006, the first season where the two-line pass rule was no longer in effect, there were 103 penalty shots, still an NHL record by a wide margin to this day. The game opened up more, and players took advantage right away. The attempts have tapered off a bit since then, but the salary cap era season average is still around 55 penalty shots per year, twice the average of the previous twenty years.
Penalty Shots by Season
Since the start of the 2005-2006 NHL season, there have been 1,045 penalty shots awarded during the regular season, and 38 awarded in the postseason. That comes out to one in about every twenty regular season games and two each postseason. And while they still might not be very frequent, they can be very impactful.
In the salary cap era there have been 1032 teams that have taken a penalty shot in a regular season game. Out of those teams, 598 of them have gone on to win the game regardless of the outcome of the shot, a rate of about 58%. Just drawing a penalty shot increases your odds of winning, whether you score or not. Moreover, out of the 337 teams that did score on their penalty shot, 235 of them won the game, a rate of approximately 70%. That is significant. Based on the data, if your team scores on a penalty shot, you have a better than two-thirds chance of winning the game.
How about in the playoffs? Of the 38 teams since 2006 that have attempted a penalty shot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 21 won the game regardless of the shot’s outcome, just over 55%. And of the 14 teams that scored on the penalty shot, 11 of them won the game, a rate of almost 79%. This means that not only is a shootout based on an actual part of a hockey game, but a part of the game that has a real impact on winning.
And it isn’t as if the format of the shootout modifies the penalty shot in some way that changes the chances of scoring a goal. That’s obvious from a theoretical perspective, but the data backs it up too. Since the shootout was established in the 2005-2006, the percentage of attempts that result in goals is 32.1%, which is nearly identical to the percentage of regular season penalty shots that have been successful since 2005-2006, which is 32.4%. In the playoffs, the chances of success are slightly higher at 36.8%, but that also includes a much smaller sample size. Even though the shootout is an alternative presentation it is, at its core, a series of isolated penalty shots, making the attempts themselves, both theoretically and empirically, the same.
Now, if someone was trying to argue that shootouts and penalty shots aren’t hockey, then they would probably have more of a case. After all, it’s hard to argue that something like Evgeny Kuznetov’s signature shootout move would ever show up in the course of an actual game:
But as long as one is in the game, the inclusion of the other makes sense and, I think, makes the game more exciting. In the shootout, we get to see supremely skilled players pulling off moves that little kids all around the world will try to copy, like this pretty deke from Olympic shootout legend T.J. Oshie.
And with penalty shots we get a unique way to restore an attacking player’s stolen scoring chance that can create drama unlike any other aspect of the sport, like this one from Shawn Bates. For context, this is during Game 4 of the 2002 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the New York Islanders and the Toronto Maple Leafs after Bates was tripped on a breakaway with less than four minutes left in the third period of a 3-3 tie.
Now that is hockey.
Here’s some bonus trivia about shootouts and penalty shots since the 2005-2006 season:
Shootouts
- The most attempts in one season is a tie between Radim Vrbata in 2009-2010 and Nicklas Backstrom in 2013-2014 with 18 total attempts over the course of the season.
- The most shootout goals scored in one season was 11 by Ilya Kovalchuk as a member of the New Jersey Devils during the 2011-2012 season.
- The most impressive shootout season is probably Jarret Stoll in 2010-2011, who went an astonishing 9 for 10.
- The record for most shootout attempts in a career is a tie between Patrick Kane and Joe Pavelski with 131. As Pavelski recently retired, he will stay at that number while Kane will continue to add to his total. The next two closest: Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.
Penalty Shots
- The most regular season penalty shots have occurred in the second period, with 38.7%, followed by the third period with 34.3%, the first period with only 22.1%, and overtime with 4.9%.
- There have been 22 regular season games since 2005 that featured two penalty shots, 13 with both shots going to the same team and 9 with one per team.
- Only one playoff game featured two penalty shots, Game 1 of the infamous Qualifying Round of the 2020 playoffs between Pittsburgh and Montreal. Neither the Penguins’ Conor Sheary or the Canadiens’ Jonathan Drouin could bury their chance.
- The leader in penalty shot goals since 2005 is Brad Marchand with 6, the leader in attempts is Alex Ovechkin with 13. For goalies, Roberto Luongo faced the most penalty shots with 29 and Henrik Lundqvist allowed the most goals with 9.
- Michael Frolik is the only player to score two playoff penalty shot goals, one in 2011 and one in 2013. He made both as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks.
- The only player to face the same goaltender three times is Max Pacioretty, who as a member of the Montreal Canadiens attempted three penalty shots on Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo. All three occurred in the 2014-2015 regular season, and two of them happened in the same period, less than two minutes apart during a February 6 game between the two teams. Luongo stopped all three.
- The only goalies to allow two penalty shot goals in the same game were Cory Schneider of the New Jersey Devils against the Calgary Flames in 2017, and Michal Neuvirth for the Washington Capitals against the San Jose Sharks in 2009 (which as a Caps fan, feels about right).
- Erik Cole holds the record for most penalty shots attempted in a single season. He had five tries during the chaotic 2005-2006 season, including two in the same period, making him and the aforementioned Max Pacioretty the only two players ever to do so.