Scoring an empty net goal & losing the game

[Kyle McMahon]

I remember that season's finish. Due to the Rangers' afternoon win, the Canadiens had to work to beat them for the final playoff spot. In that night’s game against Chicago, Montreal had to either (1) win or at least tie the game. Failing that, they had to (2) score at least five goals in losing.

Therefore, losing by 6-5 would be enough. Or losing 7-5. Or 10-5. Or 15-5. But how likely are any of those outcomes? Bah!

However, with a win, even 1-0, they’re in. With a tie, even 0-0, they’re in. Thus, the primary focus should be, as always, try to outplay these guys and win (or tie) the game. A 5-4 win or 5-5 tie would do nicely.

Soon, however, Les Habs found themselves trailing. When the score reached 5-2, then – sacre bleu! – their disparate objectives merged and simplified. They could no longer even tie without scoring five goals, so five goals became the quest, and the game result no longer mattered.

From that point on, Montreal pulled their goalie and tried to use six skaters, hoping to pick up three (3) more lousy goals. They failed. The Hawks used the empty net to run the score up to 10-2. The Canadiens missed the playoffs, for the first time since the Titanic sank, something like that. I think that this was the first all-U.S. playoff field since the invention of ice (as Toronto also failed to qualify).

One wonders if the dual objectives might have been a distraction. Maybe had they decided to forego defense entirely and set out to score five goals no matter what the opponents did, they might have made it.

I do wonder how seriously Montreal thought about throwing all caution to the wind and going for 5 goals at any cost?

I would expect that a reasonably talented NHL team could almost certainly score 5 goals in 60 minutes if that's all they cared about from the outset (and assuming the other team didn't have some reason to prevent it, content to win by some goofy score rather than vigorously defend).

Cherry picking for breakaways when the other team had possession in your zone would have been a little harder in the 2-line offside era, but would still produce a few breakaways in 60 minutes I'd think. Both defensemen always joining the rush, jumping up to create odd man situations constantly, sometimes with a 6th attacker. Purposely lazy backchecking to conserve energy and create counter-attack chances on the occasions when the other team had their rush broken up. Probably other ways to cheat for goals that I'm not thinking of.

I wouldn't play 6-on-5 continuously though. The other team might actually lay back and defend in that setup and just shoot at the empty net. I think for the first couple periods you could play somewhat normally, just with all five guys on the ice thinking score at any cost whenever you had the puck. Would be interesting to see in practice at the professional level. Seen enough 11-10 beer league games to know it works when both teams are committed to the cause...

 

[tarheelhockey]

Just happened again. Hurricanes pulled their goalie against San Jose and got scored on with 2 minutes left making it 4-2. Canes scored twice and then won in OT, Martin Necas with the last 2 goals.

 

[geehaad]

Adding to the list with an own-goal counting as an empty-net goal, Nic Wallin scored WSH’s 2nd goal in a 7-2 victory for CAR on 10/12/2006. It was an interesting moment with the benefit of hindsight…it was only their 4th game, their record was 0-2-1 after 3 games, and the own-goal put them down 1-2 in the game. After miserable campaigns in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 (plus the lockout), this just seemed like it would portend another miserable year for the CAR faithful, and yet it was an ironic turning point of sorts, as it started a 12-game point streak and they went on to win the Cup.

I disagree with this description from Wikipedia, saying Wallin lost control of the puck. I think it’s more accurate to say Wallin believed he was making a possession-saving pass back to his goaltender, but didn’t realize Ward had vacated the net on the delayed penalty. For my money, he made a deliberate pass, rather than “losing control of the puck”. I’ve never heard Wallin talk about his intentions, so it remains conjecture.

That said, if I were making the rules about what qualifies for this thread, I don’t think I’d include empty net own-goals. Or perhaps, maybe exclude delayed penalty own-goals?

Anyway, fun thread, thanks to the OP for compiling it.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Adding to the list with an own-goal counting as an empty-net goal, Nic Wallin scored WSH’s 2nd goal in a 7-2 victory for CAR on 10/12/2006. It was an interesting moment with the benefit of hindsight…it was only their 4th game, their record was 0-2-1 after 3 games, and the own-goal put them down 1-2 in the game. After miserable campaigns in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 (plus the lockout), this just seemed like it would portend another miserable year for the CAR faithful, and yet it was an ironic turning point of sorts, as it started a 12-game point streak and they went on to win the Cup.

I disagree with this description from Wikipedia, saying Wallin lost control of the puck. I think it’s more accurate to say Wallin believed he was making a possession-saving pass back to his goaltender, but didn’t realize Ward had vacated the net on the delayed penalty. For my money, he made a deliberate pass, rather than “losing control of the puck”. I’ve never heard Wallin talk about his intentions, so it remains conjecture.

That said, if I were making the rules about what qualifies for this thread, I don’t think I’d include empty net own-goals. Or perhaps, maybe exclude delayed penalty own-goals?

Anyway, fun thread, thanks to the OP for compiling it.

That's a great find! I was wondering why I didn't find it in my initial search.

Neither hockey-reference.com and NHL.com or list it as an EN goal (which was the starting point for my initial post).

Looking at the video (48 seconds in), Cam Ward is still on the ice (middle-left), along with five other Canes. So, technically, this wasn't an EN goal, as the NHL defines it, and Ward got dinged for a goal against. (Even though, in reality, there was absolutely nothing Ward could or should have done differently). Hopefully Wallin bought Ward a beer afterwards.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Just happened again. Hurricanes pulled their goalie against San Jose and got scored on with 2 minutes left making it 4-2. Canes scored twice and then won in OT, Martin Necas with the last 2 goals.

We're now up to 11 instances in NHL history. Two of the games were the farce from April 5th, 1970, and one was a "bookkeeping" entry in 2020.

There have now been four actual comebacks (October 25th, 1978; December 30th, 1988; January 5th, 2020; January 27, 2023). And four games where a goal was scored on a delayed penalty (November 28th, 1979; January 12th, 2014; March 29th, 2014; October 15th, 2016).

 

[quietbruinfan]

Those three goals in the last 50 seconds, there is no player overlap between the goals. 7 different players got the points on those three goals. That's fairly interesting to me...

A terrible Bruin team that was tanking for Joe Thornton. The offensively talented but extremely lazy Todd Elik was involved in a couple goals against. Though of the final three, I only remember losing the face-off for the last one.