Great read, as usual!
You summed it up very well - it's a tough thing to gauge, when the team has a ton of chances and doesn't score. I think tonight was mostly a case of bad "puck luck." They hit so many posts (almost never is a shot off the post - especially the
inside of the post - a reflection of an inaccurate shot), and Miller was absolutely outstanding. Against a normal goalie, and with some luck, they might have scored 6.
But there are plenty of games where the Rangers generate a ton of shots, even have a ton of high quality scoring chances, but actually fail on the execution rather than are victims of bad luck. In isolation - take the Dominic Moore chance off the post. He had a ton of time, a ton of room, and flubbed the shot. To me, that's not bad luck, that's poor execution. Execution is a
skill in this case. Some players execute better than others. Some handle pressure better than others. I bet Toews or Kopitar or Benn score that goal 85% of the time. I bet Nash scores that goal 50% of the time. A guy like Kreider maybe only 25% of the time.
I'm not trying to pick on Moore or that one play, I'm just using it as an example. We've had games where we've had 50+ shot attempts, but most of our shots are straight into the goalie's chest, or we have a breakaway and miss the net (still a shot attempt, still a scoring chance, but we didn't become a victim to bad luck, our player executed poorly).
