Lowest shot series in history?

[seventieslord]

I noticed this season that Toronto and Florida just win two of the lowest shot total series I've ever seen. I noticed as well that one other series this year frequently has lower than normal shot totals.

- There were just 240 shots in 300 minutes in the FLA-TBY series, 48.0 per 60 minutes.

- The ongoing WPG/STL series is currently averaging 47.0 per 60.

- There were 295 shots in 382 minutes in the TOR-OTT series, or 46.3 per 60.

For reference, Martin Brodeur faced 24.6 shots per 60 in his playoff career. The leafs/sens series saw both teams combine to average a shot and a half less than that.

Does this happen more often than I realize? It feels abnormally low. The other 5 series this year don't really compare

 

[pnep]

SERIES_SA

tinyurl.com

 

[GlitchMarner]

Hopefully this isn't the start of a trend that leads to a third Dead Puck Era...

TOR plays this kind of awkward low-possession style under Berube (not really the sort of system you expect a team with that much high-end offensive talent to deploy). FLA is just good defensively. I didn't realize shots were that low in the STL/WPG series. The Blues have had some high-scoring games.

 

[Michael Farkas]

That is an interesting group of series...you got a Gretzky Oilers hovering around 10ish. You have a couple Jagr Pens, and a Lemieux/Jagr Pens in there fairly high.

 

[seventieslord]

...interesting, so 3 of the 24 lowest ever, from about 800 series going back to, looks like, 1968, just happened this round. Looks like I was onto something.

I feel like Leafs/Panthers is going to be 21-19 every game.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I wonder if anyone has data on circa early 2000s Russian Superleague. I swear those games were often just mutual trap-fests and a shot on goal felt like a rare occurence.

 

[pnep]

going back to, looks like, 1968

1959-60

 

[Michael Farkas]

I wonder if anyone has data on circa early 2000s Russian Superleague. I swear those games were often just mutual trap-fests and a shot on goal felt like a rare occurence.

I just glanced at Bryzgalov's stats from '01, during the RS he faced like 23 shots a game. So it's certainly on the table...hard to believe that wide ice with players attacking 1 on 4 most of the time like bad roller hockey could have produced such a drab result haha

 

[pnep]

PO SA_PER_60MIN, Seasons:

Season	Games	TOI	SA	SA_PER_60MIN
1959-60	14	107166	908	61.00
1960-61	17	131586	1091	59.70
1961-62	18	132496	1232	66.95
1962-63	16	115200	1022	63.88
1963-64	21	153352	1344	63.10
1964-65	20	146500	1148	56.42
1965-66	16	115242	948	59.23
1966-67	16	119114	1160	70.12
1967-68	40	301165	2626	62.78
1968-69	33	241569	2055	61.25
1969-70	34	245010	2159	63.45
1970-71	43	318119	2731	61.81
1971-72	36	260079	2265	62.70
1972-73	38	275915	2383	62.18
1973-74	38	276294	2313	60.27
1974-75	51	375940	3085	59.08
1975-76	48	353516	2867	58.39
1976-77	44	323229	2509	55.89
1977-78	45	329076	2461	53.85
1978-79	45	331113	2612	56.80
1979-80	67	493675	4102	59.83
1980-81	68	499188	4266	61.53
1981-82	71	526096	4363	59.71
1982-83	66	478392	4107	61.81
1983-84	70	512955	4179	58.66
1984-85	70	517105	4302	59.90
1985-86	72	522219	4297	59.24
1986-87	87	639581	5207	58.62
1987-88	84	609033	4705	55.62
1988-89	82	612081	4916	57.83
1989-90	85	632175	4982	56.74
1990-91	92	677984	5644	59.94
1991-92	86	629694	5151	58.90
1992-93	85	648288	5450	60.53
1993-94	90	684079	5482	57.70
1994-95	81	602898	4670	55.77
1995-96	86	659362	5351	58.43
1996-97	82	620461	5193	60.26
1997-98	82	614065	4687	54.96
1998-99	86	655679	4963	54.50
1999-00	83	620848	4603	53.38
2000-01	86	647849	4620	51.35
2001-02	90	669165	4994	53.73
2002-03	89	692571	5046	52.46
2003-04	89	666908	4861	52.48
2005-06	83	620408	4875	56.58
2006-07	81	620918	4816	55.85
2007-08	85	633605	5088	57.82
2008-09	87	640630	5369	60.34
2009-10	89	659755	5503	60.06
2010-11	89	668941	5718	61.54
2011-12	86	646431	5061	56.37
2012-13	86	655918	5478	60.13
2013-14	93	699397	5600	57.65
2014-15	89	664763	5377	58.24
2015-16	91	675548	5447	58.05
2016-17	87	658291	5417	59.25
2017-18	84	618030	5227	60.89
2018-19	87	644005	5430	60.71
2019-20	130	974008	8074	59.68
2020-21	84	632272	5295	60.30
2021-22	89	650448	5927	65.61
2022-23	88	660028	5522	60.24
2023-24	88	646021	4907	54.69
2024-25	45	336840	2523	53.93

 

[Staniowski]

Shots are way down all season. I assume they are all per 60. If so, this season and the seven DPE seasons are the eight lowest in recorded NHL history.

 

[Ishdul]

SERIES_SA

tinyurl.com

That's a lot of Stanley Cup Finals at the top of the list (1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 10th and 11th). Wonder what the reason is there.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I just glanced at Bryzgalov's stats from '01, during the RS he faced like 23 shots a game. So it's certainly on the table...hard to believe that wide ice with players attacking 1 on 4 most of the time like bad roller hockey could have produced such a drab result haha

Having grown up on Swedish hockey, 23 per sounds plenty fun!

I do think ”NHL style” systems with teams being more opportunistic with shot taking has become more common in recent years. Just saw a championship finals play out where I gathered Brynäs did stray from Euro style passing buildups if that makes sense. Jakob Silfverberg has been a breath of fresh air as an actual scoring threat from what I wouldn’t call great scoring positions in a typical SHL fashion. MoDo last season, as the newly-added major underdog of the league, also did better than expected with their roster, and from my watches played a fun, opportunistic attacking game taking shots from anywhere. What I think of European hockey and the wider rink is however more about the tactical buildup of scoring plays. And stretch passes for counterattacks.