Kevin Gibson at TSN asked me an interesting question this morning – which teams take the most and fewest shifts? Well, the answer may surprise you: (data since 1997-98 season)
| Team | Year | S/G |
| col | 2004 | 25.0 |
| col | 2002 | 24.4 |
| min | 2004 | 24.2 |
| col | 2003 | 24.2 |
| min | 2003 | 24.1 |
| min | 2007 | 24.1 |
| col | 2001 | 23.9 |
| min | 2008 | 23.9 |
| min | 2002 | 23.8 |
| col | 2007 | 23.6 |
| min | 2001 | 23.5 |
| min | 2009 | 23.4 |
| van | 2004 | 23.3 |
| col | 2006 | 23.1 |
| min | 2006 | 23.0 |
I'm willing to believe that Jacques Lemaire runs the shortest shifts in the league (New Jersey 2009-2010 came in 21st overall) but Colorado? Across three coaches – Bob Hartley, Joel Quenneville and Tony Granato – and two general managers? Sounds like home scorer bias.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have an unsurprising result: the 28 teams that took the longest shifts all did it before 2002. Shifts have gotten progressively shorter over the last decade, but here are the teams that took the longest ones on average since the lockout:
| Team | Year | S/G |
| was | 2010 | 19.2 |
| nyi | 2008 | 19.2 |
| dal | 2008 | 19.3 |
| ott | 2006 | 19.5 |
| atl | 2010 | 19.5 |
| atl | 2009 | 19.6 |
| tam | 2008 | 19.6 |
| pit | 2010 | 19.7 |
| ott | 2010 | 19.7 |
| was | 2009 | 19.7 |
| pit | 2009 | 19.8 |
| buf | 2008 | 19.8 |
| atl | 2008 | 19.8 |
| tam | 2007 | 19.9 |
| mon | 2008 | 19.9 |
| ott | 2009 | 19.9 |
| was | 2008 | 20.0 |
| ott | 2008 | 20.1 |
| buf | 2007 | 20.1 |
We see a lot of teams with strong power play players on this list – Ovechkin and Kovalchuk get double- and triple-shifted on the PP all the time. The real insights here will probably come from analyzing even-strength shifts – I'll get to that another time.
