Simply put, there are better options that lead to more dangerous chances. Standing at the point and taking a shot is a terrible strategy for creating goals and sustaining offence.
I’m going to make what may seem like a bold statement: “point shots suck.”
When I first posted this on my newsletter, I got a ton of responses from all across the spectrum. Some people thought I was crazy, others agreed, and everything in between. Even my mentor disagreed at first before coming around. I want to echo that newsletter post and expand on it further as point shots are terrible on many fronts. Stick with me here.
Low Shooting Percentage
The first reason why point shots suck is that they don’t result in goals very often. From 2007-2017 Micah Blake McCurdy found that the shooting percentage from outside the house has been under 5%. His website HockeyViz has great content beyond just this. He is a former math professor who decided to work on hockey analytics in the public sphere (he has turned down multiple NHL teams).
Combining that with other data such as Clear Sight Analytics has come to show that point shots with traffic score around 3% of the time and without traffic score about 1% of the time. That is basically “playing catch” with the goalie.
It’s clear that point shots aren’t great options for scoring goals. However, some argue that they create rebounds for forwards to whack home for a goal, tips, screens, etc.
Creating Rebounds
One of the largest errors in judgment is thinking that point shots create rebounds. Often, they don’t.
This chart from Alex Novet is great for several reasons:
- It shows that point shots actually create fewer rebounds than anywhere else.
- Understanding the opponent actually recovers a majority (about 60%) of the rebounds. Any time a shot is taken there is less than a 50% chance of getting the puck back.
- More rebounds are created from shots lower in the zone. A shot from the corner shot is preferred over a shot from the point.
You can find Alex’s full CBJHAC rebound presentation here.
Where Rebounds Actually Come From
During the 2017-18 NHL season, Hiroki’s Analytics did a bunch of studies on goal scoring. One of their focus areas was rebounds. Not surprisingly and backing up what we just learned, point shots don’t often create rebounds. Shots from the house create rebounds with more frequency.
He’s not the only one noticing these trends. Shawn Ferris, a leading analytic writer at Hockey Graphs and manager of Evolving Hockey analytics website came to the same conclusion as well.
Just like goals, rebounds are also created from within the house. Again, point shots are not the solution.
Stats From An Ohio High School Team
Taking these numbers and stats into the real world, we can study a typical Ohio high school hockey team from the 2019-20 season. Here are their shot charts:
All shots by location – Clusters formed surrounding the net and at the points.
Shots that were blocked – Large clusters are at the points. Point shots are blocked at a higher rate than elsewhere.
Saved shots – No surprises here. Point shots get saved often at 97%-100%.
Goals – And finally…the goals. Funny how all the clusters at the points went away. All the goals are at the net. As a Russian coach once told me, “Go to net, score goal.”
What We Did We Learn? Point Shots Suck!
Players that use point shots as their first option are bleeding from team efficiency. They don’t create goals from shots, they don’t create rebounds, and they are more likely to turn the puck over. It doesn’t take a math genius like Micah to understand these numbers. Avoiding point shots in favour of adding shot quality is more important than adding quantity.
Point shots shouldn’t be banned, but they should be seen realistically as a low skilled and low percentage play. As a reminder, these are NHL players shooting these shots. Youth hockey would have worse odds of creating offence from point shots.
Simply put, there are better options that lead to more dangerous chances. Standing at the point and taking a shot is a terrible strategy for creating goals and sustaining offence.
