If you haven’t looked at Tom Awad’s piece on the Columbus Blue Jackets, do take a look – it’s great stuff. I made an offhand comment to Tom yesterday about the difference in shooting talent between forwards and defensemen, and that there’s also a big difference in shooting talent between 1st and 4th line forwards, but I didn’t have the numbers. So here are those numbers at even-strength:
| TOI/G | Quality | Shot % | Shots/60 | |
| Top 1/4 | 19.55 | 7.21 | 7.97 | 49.3 |
| 2nd 1/4 | 16.56 | 7.13 | 7.42 | 44.3 |
| 3rd 1/4 | 13.81 | 7.15 | 6.89 | 41.2 |
| Bot 1/4 | 9.60 | 7.07 | 5.97 | 40.8 |
So that's an imperceptible difference in everyone's favorite shot quality statistic, but a very large difference in actual shooting percentage. First-line forwards are 6% better than second-line forwards at finishing, 13% better than third-liners and 23% better than fourth-liners. Defensemen, as a group, fall about halfway between 3rd and 4th line forwards in terms of finishing talent, though they shoot from such different spots on the ice it's hard to quantify that talent.
