Iafrate Points

[tabness]

It looks like NHL website now has a stats report with empty net point information that seems to now be complete.

Just use the Miscellaneous report:
NHL.com Stats

 

[plusandminus]

Good thread and interesting work by the OP.

Empty Net play really favor players on good teams, whose team is often leading during end of game.
These things sometimes do matter when players have scored similar amounts of Pts.

(Empty Net play also significantly affect +/- stats, again favoring players on strong teams and disfavoring players on worse teams. Just like SH goals affects it. )

 

[Chrisinroch]

As stated up thread, the whole idea is wrong headed.

EN goals are goals that seal a victory. They are more meaningful than the 6-1 blowout laugher.

And rating goals is a fools errand. A double deflection off a defenseman’s ass is a goal. So is a snipe.

 

[bobbyking]

no wonder he put up 200 points a year

 

[DickSmehlik]

Great article on Iafrate from Sports Illustrated that summarizes how unique he was.

The Wild Thing

 

[Barnum]

Seems outstandingly stupid and egotistical to shoot the puck into the corner if there's time left on the clock, risking giving away the puck to your opponents. Why not hold on to the puck instead through skating or pass it to one of your teammates if you're too edgy and early 90s cool to score on empty nets? Or was Iafrate (and Brett Hull) not good enough to keep it through skating? If I was his coach and he did that I would healthy scratch him for the next 5 games and then never let him protect a lead in the dying minutes again.

Just seems like something someone who wants attention (and is probably not getting enough through his regular play) would do.

Only time you shouldn't try to score on an empty net is if the other team is penalized and you risk icing the puck and end up losing possession in your defensive zone through a face-off.

You took this too seriously.


It was a sarcastic comment to the press by the “SS Iafrate” aka The Planet after he missed an empty netter. He didn’t truly do it on purpose. Iafrate was like a WWE character back when the NHL had nutty personalities. This is a guy who’s hobbies included sword fighting and glass jumping along with lighting his smokes with a torch instead of matches. He could play though and had the hardest shot for a long time.

 

[sr edler]

@4Orr Ok then. I believe you, because it sounds more reasonable, this version. I haven't read or heard it first hand from Iafrate himself. But my question is, if it was sarcastic then why are everyone telling it like it wasn't? That's not my fault if everyone's acting like a hive mind megaphone for fake news.

 

[Barnum]

@4Orr Ok then. I believe you, because it sounds more reasonable, this version. I haven't read or heard it first hand from Iafrate himself. But my question is, if it was sarcastic then why are everyone telling it like it wasn't? That's not my fault if everyone's acting like a hive mind megaphone for fake news.

It’s not really fake news, he did say it, in fact he didn’t actually say “sissy” he said something else but it can’t be printed. Meh, quotes over time get changed, or misinterpreted. How many people on here have seen the Iafrate play a game or the interview? They just see the text, and judge it 30 years later. It happens.

 

[iamjs]

In fact, at the All-Star skills segment last weekend in Montreal, Iafrate won the hardest-shot competition by blasting a puck 105.2 mph. Iafrate (pronounced i-uh-FRAY-tee), who turns 27 next month but is already in his ninth NHL season,

I had no idea he was only 26 when he broke the record. That skullet made him look much older.

 

[Big Phil]

no wonder he put up 200 points a year

Oh come on, really? Gretzky has 85 empty net points in his career which is the best all-time like every other record he owns and this is what you take from it?

Okay, in all seriousness, that's not a lot of empty net points especially considering he has 2,857 over his career in total.

Here is why I think an empty net goal is important and personally I can find a game where an empty net goal is arguably the most important of the game. The scenario would be this. A 3-0 lead by a team turns into a 3-2 lead with the other team pressing to tie. The goalie is pulled and pressure is on to tie the game. Instead the puck bounces out over the line the team leading scores the goal to make it 4-2, alleviating the pressure. Game over. This is important. There is 45 seconds left in the game, lots of time to tie it but we now know the game will not be tied because the scarce amount of time that it has happened when a team scores an empty net goal but still loses is like the odds of getting struck by lightning. So yes, it IS a very important goal. Sure there are those scored with 5 seconds left that are meaningful, but find a blow out game and a goal scored in that game on either end is just as meaningless isn't it? It is a goal scored in the NHL and if he wasn't a decent player his coach wouldn't have him out there protecting a lead.

 

[bobbyking]

Oh come on, really? Gretzky has 85 empty net points in his career which is the best all-time like every other record he owns and this is what you take from it?

Okay, in all seriousness, that's not a lot of empty net points especially considering he has 2,857 over his career in total.

Here is why I think an empty net goal is important and personally I can find a game where an empty net goal is arguably the most important of the game. The scenario would be this. A 3-0 lead by a team turns into a 3-2 lead with the other team pressing to tie. The goalie is pulled and pressure is on to tie the game. Instead the puck bounces out over the line the team leading scores the goal to make it 4-2, alleviating the pressure. Game over. This is important. There is 45 seconds left in the game, lots of time to tie it but we now know the game will not be tied because the scarce amount of time that it has happened when a team scores an empty net goal but still loses is like the odds of getting struck by lightning. So yes, it IS a very important goal. Sure there are those scored with 5 seconds left that are meaningful, but find a blow out game and a goal scored in that game on either end is just as meaningless isn't it? It is a goal scored in the NHL and if he wasn't a decent player his coach wouldn't have him out there protecting a lead.

obviously you can't see sarcasm in my writing but I should've been more obvious.


obviously he and Mario are in their own league

 

[sr edler]

It’s not really fake news, he did say it, in fact he didn’t actually say “sissy” he said something else but it can’t be printed. Meh, quotes over time get changed, or misinterpreted. How many people on here have seen the Iafrate play a game or the interview? They just see the text, and judge it 30 years later. It happens.

I'm b. 1981 and a Euro so I didn't watch Iafrate play, in real time, though around 92–93 when he had his most productive season that's around when I started become entrenched, but they didn't televise a lot of games over here, and a 12-year old at that time didn't really stay up in the middle of the night to watch hockey, not even a guy who hated school as much as I did, though I did (stay up in the middle of the night) one year later when Bure made it to the finals.

It still feels like people wanted that to be the case though, that he missed it on purpose, because they want a wacky character, which is a human thing to want, so they pumped up the story more or less on purpose. I read a few articles on Iafrate now though and he didn't come across particularly strange or out there to me, but more like a guy who liked heavy metal and motorcycles (very normal here in the Swedish-Finnish cultural hemisphere, although I'm not a fan myself), liked to drink alcohol (also normal here, not a big fan myself though), liked to be noticed (a relatively normal human trait, though I'm pretty shy particularly in bigger groups of people) and was a sensitive guy (like me) who had a heartbreak (normal), and moved on, et cetera.

His self-consciousness regarding his balding was a funny read though.

But for a guy "who wanted to be noticed" he still didn't like it much in fishbowl Toronto, which goes to show there's a limit for most things I guess. In Washington DC he could fly a bit under the radar. He said in Toronto if you walked into a bar people would still chastise you for a play 5 years ago when Cam Neely made you look foolish in the d-zone.

I wonder how good he was defensively though, overall. One article says he learned to pick his pinches towards the o-zone, 2 or 3 per games, but I guess it could be some kind of light romanticism?

 

[sr edler]

I had no idea he was only 26 when he broke the record. That skullet made him look much older.

He looks like he's 46.

 

[Big Phil]

obviously you can't see sarcasm in my writing but I should've been more obvious.


obviously he and Mario are in their own league

Sometimes I have to check it out, you never know...............

 

[67 others]

The running joke on the Sharks board if Thornton got an empty net goal has always been "he passed it to the net"

 

[cgarn]

Best hair in the NHL

 

[GongShowWilly]

My favorite player ever . Hardest shot ever , and he did it standing still with an olden wooden stick
back in 1984 , we were in a hockey camp , I was a defenceman , they said we are bringing in a Leafs dman to coach you guys …… I prayed for Al …. we got Jim Benning lol still a good dude

 

[Sugi21]

Why is no one talking about Iafrate’s hair?

 

[morehockeystats]

Why is no one talking about Iafrate’s hair?
View attachment 350893

because it's stats forum, not a hair one.