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Behind the Net goes to an actual NHL game

I don’t actually live very close to an NHL arena – the Sharks play 55 miles from my house, which is a huge time investment to see a game. Their games are almost always completely sold out these days, which has driven prices up – a friend of mine bought season tickets last year, but I think he sold 90% of the games rather than take his freeloader friends.

That means I only get to see live games when I’m out-of-town, so I headed over to the Staples Center to see the Kings and Blackhawks tonight. It was an exciting game – tied til the 2nd; then the Kings led 1-0 until the mid-3rd. We had overtime where teams actually tried to win (including a penalty call!), two timeouts and an anti-climactic four-shot shootout.

It was very interesting to see some of the things that get discussed here and on other stats-focused sites: Chicago was down for over 20 minutes; they significantly outshot the Kings. Anze Kopitar had a breakaway and didn’t score – but of course shooting percentage is only 33% on a breakaway; rebounds are vastly more dangerous. I suppose I could have counted shots directed at the net and compare them to the official count…But that really wouldn’t have been much fun…

Anyways, the next live game on my schedule is whichever Olympic quarter-final Canada is playing in.  More then…

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