GDT: [#61] ★ @ Phantom of the Paradise

[Troy McClure]

Well, the obvious of avoiding icing and keeping your tired bunch on the ice for another D zone faceoff. Both Klinger (and even more so, Jamie) had room to angle one off the boards, which should have killed puck momentum well before icing. Of course, Jamie also had the space and time to take pretty careful aim.

And, that's the thing, hockey players have to make those decisions very fast, so when they miss, its easy to criticize than do. It was just interesting that Ruff coaches them to take those chances. With a different instruction set, maybe both of those plays get angled off the boards for a change.

Wonder if Ruff has looked at any statistics on that to guide his belief? Or if somewhere higher, management had decided that advertising the highest scoring team in hockey sold more tickets than a boring one, even if it cost a few wins?

On one hand, you need to know what are the chances of a player hitting the empty net from distance and winning the game.

On the other hand, you need to know what are the chances that goal against happens on a faceoff in your own end when the other team has the extra attacker.

Maybe the odds really do say the shot is more likely to win the game than passing up the shot. The more I think about it, they probably do.

My guess is Klingberg makes that shot one out of three tries. My guess also is the opposing team only scores on an offensive zone faceoff with the extra man at most 5% of the time.

If the odds are even in that ballpark, the safe play is taking the shot.