I also have an era adjusted stats question
Since the NHL removed ties from the league, should all OT/SO goals be removed from the calculation to find the goals per game average for all of those years? Or a percentage of them?
Many of those goals are artificially inflating goal totals that wouldn’t exist without gimmicks like 3 on 3, 4 on 4 and the shootout.
Every game that goes past regulation will have 1 goal added to the leagues goal totals. Its a foregone conclusion, the league forces to happen.
In the 80’s, those goals had to be scored like any other goal. Today, the league will continue changing the rules until they can ‘award’ a goal after a shootout. And many more OT goals are scored after going to 4 on 4 and 3 on 3
Aren’t today’s league wide goal totals awfully inflated because of this? You can’t really weight them in the same way as any other goal
Sure, but that's hardily the only rule or change made to the game that effects goal scoring.
Here's a few other examples;
-Prior to 1956-57 powerplays lasted a full 2 minutes regardless if a team scored or not. Teams would at times score 2 or 3 goals during the same 2 minute powerplay.
-From 1942 to 1983 overtime didn't exist in the regular season at all, nevermind the few extra goals scored in today's game by forcing an end result.
-From 1985 to 1992, substitutions were allowed for coincidental minors greatly reducing 4 on 4 play during games.
So yeah, some goals scored today are done in ways that couldn't have happened in the 1980's. But some goals score in the 1980's were scored in ways that couldn't have happened in the 1960's or the 1990's and some goals score in the 1950's were scored in ways that couldn't have happened in the 1970's or in todays game and so on so forth. Are you going to make adjustments for all the other way the game has changed over the years?