This comes from a couple of points made by Alex Hemsky (comment here, and post here), where we discussed the possibility that the Jets might be missing a lot of shots (and consequently playing better than regular shot on-goal totals). It’s not an out-there suggestion; we inherited an Atlanta Thrashers team that had a lot of shots taken by defencemen in 2010-11 (33.6%, the highest percentage since the 2002-03 Colorado Avalanche’s 33.9%), and it played a part in the team coming in 4th in the league in road missed shots despite ranking only 16th in road shots-for. Note: I use road data to avoid potential home scorer’s bias. I think just about any fan thinks their team misses a lot of shots or gets a lot of shots blocked, but have the misses continued to plague us this year?
First of all, we still have a fairly high amount of our shots taken by defencemen, at 29.6% (considerably higher than the league average the past five years, 25.7%). I would forward that part of the reason we are south of 30% could likely be due to losing Dustin Byfuglien for about a month, as he was a big part (pun intended) of the defensive shooting last year. As for the Winnipeg rank in road missed shots:
Team | M/G |
Boston Bruins | 13.26 |
Ottawa Senators | 12.48 |
Winnipeg Jets | 12.45 |
San Jose Sharks | 12.35 |
Pittsburgh Penguins | 12.28 |
Detroit Red Wings | 12.19 |
St. Louis Blues | 12.18 |
Vancouver Canucks | 12.15 |
Washington Capitals | 11.77 |
Chicago Blackhawks | 11.75 |
Phoenix Coyotes | 11.63 |
Tampa Bay Lightning | 11.56 |
Philadelphia Flyers | 11.54 |
Carolina Hurricanes | 11.44 |
Los Angeles Kings | 11.26 |
Columbus Blue Jackets | 11.07 |
Colorado Avalanche | 11.04 |
Montreal Canadiens | 10.84 |
Edmonton Oilers | 10.81 |
New Jersey Devils | 10.81 |
Dallas Stars | 10.80 |
Toronto Maple Leafs | 10.72 |
Anaheim Ducks | 10.65 |
New York Islanders | 10.50 |
Buffalo Sabres | 10.42 |
New York Rangers | 10.41 |
Minnesota Wild | 10.38 |
Florida Panthers | 10.31 |
Nashville Predators | 9.54 |
Calgary Flames | 8.90 |
Well, that's pretty high. The interesting thing here is that this is partly on the forwards, since Bustin was gone for so many of our road games in January. How about our road shots-for:
Team | SF/G |
Pittsburgh Penguins | 33.9 |
Chicago Blackhawks | 32.8 |
Detroit Red Wings | 32.5 |
San Jose Sharks | 32.2 |
Boston Bruins | 30.7 |
Los Angeles Kings | 30.7 |
Vancouver Canucks | 30.6 |
Ottawa Senators | 30.3 |
St. Louis Blues | 30.2 |
Philadelphia Flyers | 29.9 |
Colorado Avalanche | 29.4 |
Columbus Blue Jackets | 29.2 |
Carolina Hurricanes | 29.1 |
Montreal Canadiens | 28.4 |
Phoenix Coyotes | 28.3 |
Tampa Bay Lightning | 28.1 |
Winnipeg Jets | 28.1 |
Washington Capitals | 28.0 |
New York Islanders | 28.0 |
New Jersey Devils | 27.7 |
Florida Panthers | 27.7 |
Minnnesota Wild | 27.4 |
Toronto Maple Leafs | 27.3 |
Buffalo Sabres | 27.0 |
Dallas Stars | 26.8 |
Nashville Predators | 26.3 |
Calgary Flames | 26.2 |
New York Rangers | 26.1 |
Edmonton Oilers | 25.0 |
Anaheim Ducks | 24.6 |
Boy, 3rd in road missed shots and 17th in road shots-for sounds awfully familiar. Revisiting Alex’s post, let’s recall that Bustin is far from the worst offender here; he and Tobias Enstrom are the best defencemen for hitting the net (which makes sense). So…forwards having trouble hitting the net, defencemen having trouble hitting the net – shooting clinic anyone?