I wrote about rebounds a few months ago, and I thought the findings were pretty interesting. Not only are teams more likely to score in the first four seconds following a previous shot, but they are also much more likely to score than we would have expected given where those rebounds came from:
"
| Save Pct | Expected | Actual |
| 1 second | 721 | 549 |
| 2 seconds | 792 | 527 |
| 3 seconds | 835 | 736 |
| 4 seconds | 877 | 869 |
| 5+ seconds | 895 | 907 |
"
In other words, there's significant defensive and goaltender disorganization on rebounds that leads to them being much more dangerous than they would have been if they were first shot attempts. One other factor that is also very significant is multiple attempts:
| Attempt | Attempt | |
| 1st Reb. | 2nd+ | Change |
| 857 | 803 | +38% |
This is no more surprising than the notion that rebounds result in defensive disorganization. If you keep banging away at the puck – and the opposition gives you opportunities to do so – you will score at an increasingly higher rate.
Of course, there aren't that many opportunities for multiple rebounds as the likelihood of getting another rebound drops by about an order of magnitude with each successive whack at the puck:
| Attempt | Pct of All Shots |
| 1st Reb | 4.9 |
| 2nd Reb | 0.37 |
| 3rd+ Reb | 0.032 |
Putting everything together, the likelihood of getting another rebound or a goal increases substantially as you get more chances:
| Rebound% | Goal or Rebound% | |
| Initial Shot | 4.9% | 16.4% |
| 1st Rebound | 7.5% | 19.0% |
| 2nd Rebound | 7.3% | 24.6% |
| 3rd Rebound | 11.6% | 29.1% |
In other words, the more whacks you get at the puck, the higher your chances of ultimately scoring.
