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The truth about shots on net

10/24/2018, 1:45pm CDT
By Kim McCullough, M.Sc, YCS

Shooting effectively is more important that simply getting as many shots as possible


Let’s Play Hockey photo by Mike Thill

I have to admit that when I first starting coaching, I was a little too focused on asking my teams to get more shots on net than their opponent. It was a mainstay of my pre-game speeches and often repeated the line “there’s no such thing as a bad shot” to my players.  

While most of us would agree that outshooting your opponent is never really a bad thing, it isn’t the most important thing. I can count many games where we outshot our opponents 20-15, but 10 of the shots we took hit their goalie square in the chest, while 10 of our opponent’s shots required our goalie to fight to see the initial shot and control the rebound. 

Although we may have won the stat of most shots on net, half of our shots were ineffective. We’ve also won many games where we were outshot badly, but most of the opponent’s shots came from the perimeter and without traffic in front, while our shots forced the goalie to both track the puck and move in order to make the save. 

I wanted to share a few ideas with you on how to shoot more effectively instead of focusing entirely on the number of shots you generate.

Shots from the house
The house is the area of the ice that extends from both posts out to the in-zone faceoff dots and up to the top of the circle. Some coaches also refer to this area as home plate because it has the same shape as home plate does in baseball. Shots from the house is the most important stat I track for our team’s attacking and defending perspectives. We track how many shots we take from our opponent’s house and how many they are able to get against us in our house. Nine times out of 10, when we get more shots from the house than our opponents, we play an excellent offensive game and usually end up on the winning side of the scoreboard.  

Shots from the point
This is one I like to track both for and against as it tells me how involved our defensemen are getting in our team’s offense, and gives me an idea of how much offense our opponents are able to generate and from where. I like to see my Ds involved in the offense – especially when they have cannons for shots. 

When we are generating around 10 shots from the point in a game, it tells me that we are getting sustained puck pressure in the opposition’s zone and our forwards are doing a good job of changing the point of attack by moving pucks from down low to up high. Just getting the shots off from the point is important, but more important is that they hit the net, there is traffic in front and hopefully they generate a scoring opportunity.  

Make sure you track exactly where the shot came from. You may find out some interesting trends as the season wears on – like you may take 80 percent of your point shots from the right side.

Shots on 2-on-1s
This is a small point but a significant one. I consistently tell my players that we MUST get a shot off when we have 2-on-1 opportunities in practices and games. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing two players head down the ice on a prime scoring opportunity and watching them make one or two too many passes instead of generating a scoring chance.  When it comes to 2-on-1s, players must have a shot/rebound mentality and look to get the goalie moving east/west with a shot off the far pad or a pass to the backdoor for a tap in or one-timer.  

Shots with a purpose
Girls’ hockey players tend to want to get off the “perfect shot” instead of getting a shot off quickly.  This is especially frustrating to watch with players battling in the slot and Ds with a clear lane to the net. Players in the slot must fight to keep their sticks on the ice and get hard shots off as fast as possible that force the goalie to track the puck and react quickly. 

Instead of trying to place the puck in the net, players should try to shoot the puck through the back of the net. It doesn’t matter if the goal is pretty, it matters that it goes in. With Ds at the point, the main focus should be getting the shot through on net as quickly as possible. Most of the time, this doesn’t require a massive wind-up. I spend a lot of time teaching Ds to get off shots with half backswings so that they can contribute more on the offense and have less shots blocked by shin pads.  

In girls’ hockey, where effective offense is at a premium, I will still encourage players to get more shots on net whenever possible. But I will spend even more time teaching them what effective shooting is all about. 

 

For a step-by-step guide to help you take your shooting and stickhandling to the next level, check out our Total Female Hockey Elite Shooting and Stickhandling Video Series here. Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS, is an expert in the development of aspiring female hockey players. She is a former NCAA Division I captain at Dartmouth and played in the National Women’s Hockey League for six years. She is currently the Head Coach of the Toronto-Leaside Junior Team in the Provincial Women’s Hockey League and is the Director & Founder of Total Female Hockey.

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Tag(s): State Of Hockey  News  Kim McCullough