NEWARK, N.J. — The Golden Knights didn’t play their best game Thursday night at Prudential Center. Coach Pete DeBoer said he “hated” his team’s second-period performance, and the third-period effort was only a slight improvement.
But despite all of that, Vegas walked away with a 5-3 victory over the Devils, improving to 2-0 to start this four-game East Coast road trip. And in that win, they had two exceptional shots by William Karlsson and Nic Roy in a span of 33 seconds.
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Karlsson gave Vegas a 3-1 lead early in the third period with a laser-accurate wrist shot in transition that buzzed just over the blocker arm of Devils goalie McKenzie Blackwood, off the crossbar and into the net.
On the very next shift, Roy caught a pass from Mattias Janmark with speed, skated into the right faceoff circle and ripped a well-placed snap shot just over Blackwood’s right pad to make it 4-1. The Devils fought back valiantly, outplaying the Golden Knights for long stretches, but couldn’t overcome those two excellent individual efforts.
“We were opportunistic,” DeBoer said after the win. “We knew they had to open it up a little bit, and I thought we took advantage when they did. That’s one thing we’ve done all year is stick the puck in the net when we’ve had looks. Tonight was one of those nights where we did just enough to win.”
The Golden Knights have shot the puck much better this season, capitalizing on scoring chances at a much higher rate than in past seasons. They have plenty of talented shooters, with captain Mark Stone and his linemate Max Pacioretty leading the way with the highest shooting talent above average over their careers, according to Money Puck.
What, exactly, does that mean? Shooting talent above average is a fascinating stat that I found while perusing through analytical data one day on MoneyPuck. It attempts to quantify a player’s shooting ability based on the number of goals scored compared to the shots they’ve taken over their career.
If you’re a regular reader, you’re familiar with expected goals by now. That statistic estimates the number of goals a player is expected to score based on the quantity and quality of their shots. It takes into account where the shots are taken on the ice, as well as what led up to those shots (whether it was on a rebound or in transition).
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Sometimes a player outscores their expected goals based on nothing more than variance. Hockey is a crazy sport with people zipping around the ice at upward of 20 miles per hour with knives on their feet, shooting a vulcanized piece of rubber toward a net. Goals are scored off deflections, and luck can be involved.
Analytical data accounts for these variances and assumes they will even out over time. Players will go through stretches when the puck seems to be a magnet for the back of the net. They’ll also go through droughts when no matter how many scoring chances they earn, they can’t seem to bury a goal.
But what about players who regularly outscore their expected goals? The expected goals model doesn’t account for shooting talent, and there’s no doubt that some players are simply better at capitalizing on their scoring chances than others. That’s where “shooting talent above average” comes in.
According to MoneyPuck, “The problem we are trying to solve is, ‘What is the probability that a player is actually a certain shooting talent level given their performance in the NHL so far?’ As there is a lot of luck involved in whether a shot goes in the net or not, a player may get more or less goals over the course of a season than their true shooting talent would reflect.
“By simulating each player’s career shots thousands of times, we can see the probability that a simulated player set to any true shooting talent level (such as 10 percent above average), would do as well as that player actually has.”
Let’s use Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin as an example, because he’s one of the best shooters in the history of the sport. This season, Ovechkin has only 13.05 expected goals based on the shots he’s taken, but he’s unsurprisingly scored many more than that (20). He has consistently outscored his expected goals throughout his 17-year career, with an impressive 173.07 goals scored above expected since the 2007-08 season. Because of that, MoneyPuck has determined Ovechkin’s shooting talent to be 22.3 percent above that of an average NHL player.
Now that we’ve established that, let’s dive into the Golden Knights’ roster to see which players have the best (and worst) shooting talent according to this metric, starting with the forwards.
| Player | Shooting Talent Above Average |
|---|---|
14.7 | |
12.0 | |
7.6 | |
7.3 | |
5.9 | |
5.1 | |
4.0 | |
-3.2 | |
-9.1 | |
-26.0 |
It’s no surprise that Max Pacioretty is near the top of this list. He’s known for having one of the quickest releases in the sport, and has sniped 316 goals in his 822 NHL games.
Pacioretty’s shot is both hard and accurate, and he often beats goalies clean from outside the slot. This heat map by MoneyPuck shows that visually. Most heat maps have much orange or red outside of the area directly in front of the net. That’s where most goals are scored, and shots from pretty much anywhere else tend to be low-percentage shots. But not for Pacioretty, who can score from outside the faceoff dots, particularly in the right circle.
This graphic shows Pacioretty’s heat map next to William Carrier’s for the 2021-22 season, just for context. Carrier is statistically the worst shooter on the Golden Knights, at minus-26 shooting talent above average. His speed and power allow him to drive to the net almost at will, frequently bullying his way into high-danger areas. But Carrier lacks finishing ability once he’s there, often shooting the puck into the goalie’s pads from in tight. For those reasons, Carrier has finished with fewer goals than expected in each of the last four seasons and is on pace to do it again this season.
| Season | Expected goals | Actual goals | Goals above expected |
|---|---|---|---|
2017-18 | 4.56 | 1 | -3.56 |
2018-19 | 8.69 | 8 | -0.69 |
2019-20 | 9.37 | 7 | -2.37 |
2020-21 | 7.49 | 6 | -1.49 |
2021-22 | 3.46 | 3 | -0.46 |
The most surprising revelation when comparing the shooting talent of all the Golden Knights’ forwards is that Pacioretty isn’t atop the list. Ask any player on the team who the best shooter is, and they’ll almost certainly say Pacioretty before you can even finish the question. So why is Mark Stone’s “Shooting talent above average” 2.7 percentage points higher?
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The short answer is that Stone is far more selective with his shots. He’s not a volume shooter like Pacioretty, so when he does decide to shoot, it’s usually from a very dangerous position.
“Stoney shoots to score,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “He’s not a volume shooter by any means. If anything he’s a pass-first guy, but he has that ability.”
Over their careers, Pacioretty has taken 4,901 shot attempts in 822 games (5.96 per game) while Stone has taken only 1,924 shot attempts in 520 games (3.7 per game). But Stone’s career shooting percentage of 15.7 is significantly higher than Pacioretty’s (11.4), largely because he’s not being relied upon to shoot as often, and can pick his spots.
Because Stone is such a great distributor of the puck, opposing goalies are usually expecting him to pass. When he does shoot, he catches them off-guard. Stone also likes to get in close, and deke around the goalie rather than beating them with a shot. Because of that, the average distance of his shots is only 25.5 feet (compared to 36.3 feet for Pacioretty).
“When he does decide to shoot, it’s got a good chance of going in the net,” DeBoer said of Stone. “He has an underrated shot. We’ve talked before about trying to get him to think shot-first more, but that’s against his DNA a little bit. He wants to make everybody else better, and that’s what makes him great.”
All three forwards on Vegas’ second line have above-average shooting talent as well. Jonathan Marchessault leads the way with 7.6 percent above average, and centerman William Karlsson isn’t far behind at 7.3 percent. Reilly Smith’s shot isn’t as effective as his linemates but is still above league average at 4.0 percent.
With that type of shooting ability and the sheer number of games played, it’s no coincidence that they are the three leading scorers in franchise history.
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Evgenii Dadonov and Chandler Stephenson also both have above-average shooting talent. Interestingly, Dadonov is actually underperforming his expected goals this season, with 9.47 expected goals and only eight actual goals. In each of his four NHL seasons, he has outscored his expected goals, so that suggests a run of goals could be coming for the sharp-shooting Russian winger.
If you’re wondering why a particular forward wasn’t included on the list, it’s because MoneyPuck needs a big enough sample size to calculate shooting talent above average, so many of Vegas’ forwards didn’t have enough career shots to qualify.
In case you’re wondering, Jack Eichel has a predicted shooting talent of 10.9 percent above average, adding a third forward with a percentage in the double-digits to the Golden Knights’ already dangerous forward group.
| Player | Shooting Talent Above Average |
|---|---|
17.5 | |
7.3 | |
7 | |
-0.1 | |
-14.8 |
It will surprise no one that the Golden Knights have three defensemen with well-above-average shooting ability, and that they are Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore and Alec Martinez.
What is a bit surprising, though, is that Martinez outshoots the other two by a considerable margin. Martinez has scored only 0.11 goals per game over his lengthy NHL career, lower than both Pietrangelo (0.15) and Theodore (0.14). But he also shoots a lot less than his fellow blueliners.
| Player | Shot attempts per game |
|---|---|
5.28 | |
5.00 | |
3.45 |
Martinez has a career shooting percentage of 7.3, but in his two seasons with the Golden Knights that has risen to a highly-impressive 9.8 percent. But where Martinez’s shooting ability truly shines is on the power play, where he has scored on 13 percent of his shots as a Golden Knight.
Vegas utilizes Martinez on the right half wall on its power play, lining him up for one-timers from the right faceoff circle. Martinez has played that role well, scoring three power-play goals in 74 regular-season games and four more in 39 playoff games. This shooting heat map compares Martinez’s shot selection in 2020-21 at even strength and on the power play.
And while they trail Martinez in this metric, both Theodore and Pietrangelo are excellent shooters from the blue line, especially considering how often they’re asked to do it. Both have scored above their expected goals over their careers.
At minus-0.1 shooting talent above average, Brayden McNabb is almost exactly average, which isn’t bad considering his defense-first role. He may not shoot often, but he’s shown that when given the chance he can unleash an accurate shot to beat a goalie.
Overall, the Golden Knights have some talented shooters at both layers and will be adding perhaps the most talented shooter when Eichel eventually returns to full health.
(Top photo of Nic Roy: Elsa / Getty Images)
