After talking with some coaches on social media, I decided to do some research on when teams score goals on the power play.

Having data from the past two playoffs, I wanted to share some stats that translate to when power play goals are scored. Taking a look at the percentages below, clearly the first 30 seconds and the first half of the power play are important.

The data below looks at goals scored at 5v4 on two-minutes penalties from the 2019 and 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs.

This isn’t a matter of saying “focus on scoring a goal 11-20 seconds into every power play,” but rather learning more about when goals are scored on the power play, and why?

First 30 seconds (28.47%)

This is the first quarter of your power play. Usually, most teams send their top players out there. We can see that some teams are attacking right from the faceoff and others take their time to establish themselves in the zone and attack later on in the man advantage.

0:31 – 1:00 (23.84%)

If you lose the draw and have to break-out from you own zone, you might end up in this category.

It surprised me the most to find out this was the second-lowest category for percentage of goals scored on the power play. Every faceoff is important, but according to this data, control off the faceoff is even more important on the power play.

1:01 – 1:30 (24.56%)

This is usually the last part of the first unit. This is the second highest percentage for scoring a goal on the power play.

One of the big reasons behind this, is the players on the penalty kill are getting tired from being out there for such a long time, if they haven’t had the chance to change. If not, fresh legs coming on from your second unit can give you an additional chance for a goal during this time.

Last 30 seconds (23.13%)

The last part of the power play has the lowest percentage chance to score. If you were not able to create something in the first 90 seconds, the last 30 might be tricky, especially with the pressure of someone coming out of the penalty box. The other thing to consider is, and let’s be honest here, your second unit usually has two defencemen and none of your top three forwards. Their odds of scoring is lower than your first unit.