Practical Concerns: The Gift Of Goals

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Lighting the lamp is the hardest thing to do in all of hockey, and scoring is down yet again in the NHL.

But instead of talking about ways to make goalies worse, by reducing the size of their equipment or by limiting what they can do on the ice, let’s look at a few habits shooters can acquire to shift the odds in their favor.

While the statistics and research behind the information presented here come from the NHL and CIS levels, I’m confident that any player – from Peewee to Beer League – can put them to good use in 2016.

I’ve already written about scoring in the shootout, so here are four scientifically sound tips for scoring more in open play.

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Practical Concerns: A better way to evaluate defensemen

Credit: Michael Miller - Creative Commons

Credit: Michael Miller – Creative Commons

I was watching hockey a few nights when I heard NBC’s Pierre McGuire describe a rookie defenseman in glowing terms. It was the same kind of praise he used to shower upon Dion Phaneuf about 10 years ago, and this young player had very similar attributes to an early-20s Phaneuf: a huge frame, a huge slapshot, and a willingness to use both in equal measures.

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