Let’s say your team is down by a goal, and there are about 10 minutes left in the game, when the opposing team is called for a penalty. Why not pull your goalie during the power play for a 6 on 4 advantage? To me it doesn’t seem any more risky than pulling your goalie with a couple minutes left to get a 6 on 5 advantage, maybe even less risky because you’d have two extra players to help keep the puck bottled up in the offensive zone and a better chance to tie the game.
I think I remember Mike Keenan doing that once in a while. As far as how effective it was compared to other strategies, I don’t know. And when I saw Keenan coaching the Blues, he had pretty much jumped the rails entirely by that point, so there’s that, too.
Two reasons: first, the penalty killers are allowed to ice the puck without any repercussions, so if they do recover the puck they can just take a shot on goal from anywhere. Second, when the penalty ends you’re not allowed to sub your goalie back in until the next whistle, so if you don’t score you’re in big trouble.
Now, of there’s about 4 minutes left the risks are a lot more worth it IMO.
The difference is that 8 minutes. With only two minutes left pulling the goalie is a desperation move that often results in giving up an open net goal. I think it’s been done before, but it’s difficult to see justifying it when down by one point since there’s such a good chance you’ll end up down by two points. 6 on 4 is no guarantee of scoring a goal.
It does happen later in the game, but the big issue is that the other team is allowed to ice the puck while short handed.
So every time the get the puck they can fling it at your empty net. If they score great, and if they miss, you have to go get the puck(no goalie to relay remember) and reenter the zone, losing 15 seconds minimum. They have nothing to lose, unlike an even strength empty netter where the threat of getting called for an icing and having the puck start in front their net with no line change, usually outweighs the risk of taking a shot, in favor of trying just a half boards dump in to get time to get new people on the ice.
I know that the short handed team is able to ice the puck. I guess it’s a question of whether with a 2 man advantage you have more of a chance of scoring, or getting scored on (empty net).
Rysto makes a good point, though, about not being able to sub the goalie back in if the penalty expires. I hadn’t considered that.
In the 1969-70 season, the ranking to determine finish was (1) points, (2) wins, (3) total goals scored. On the last day of the season the Rangers had to beat Detroit with the Canadiens losing to the Blackhawks plus score 5 more goals than the Canadiens to earn the 4th playoff spot in the East.
In an afternoon game, The Rangers had 65 shots on goal and won 9-5. In fact when they were up 9-3 and a win seemed certain, they pulled their goalie to try to run up tier total goals, They didn’t score, but Detroit got two empty-netters.
In the evening, the Canadiens either had to beat Chicago or score five goals to make the playoffs. Losing 5-2 with 9 minutes left in the game, they pulled Vachon. They didn’t score and gave up 5 goals to lose 10-2.
So my conclusion is pulling the goalie for an extended period is indeed a desperation move.
I think the main reason you don’t usually do this is, you have to remember that there’s no icing called if your team is shorthanded, so a length of the ice shot on goal has no downside if it’s missed - and if the shorthanded team can get to the puck first, it’s pretty much an automatic goal.
Speaking of the Blues, I saw them do this in last night’s game against San Jose. The Sharks got a penalty with about six minutes left in the game, then with about 25 seconds left in the power play got called for another, so the Blues had a brief 5 on 3. After the first penalty expired (about 4 min left in the game) the Blues pulled Elliot for a 6 on 4. They didn’t get a goal out of it, and San Jose did wind up getting an empty net goal although it was in the waning seconds of the game, after the second penalty had expired.
I wondered if the Blues were actually planning to pull him during the 5 on 3 to get a 3-man advantage. But they couldn’t control the puck and the Sharks were easily able to kill off the remainder of the first penalty.
And speaking of the Sharks, in 2002 Evgeni Nabokov scored the league’s only power play goal by a goaltender when the Vancouver Canucks pulled their goalie while on a penalty kill. What compelled the coach to do this in a regular season game while down two goals already I don’t know.
It’s super unlikely, but you might score 5-on-5 (scoring 2 is quite a stretch of course). This goal remains one of my favourite moments (from a series where there wasn’t a lot to cheer for as a Sens fan).
This happens a lot especially in lower leagues. You don’t see it as much in the NHL because a team killing a penalty can ice the puck and some of them are accurate enough to score from their own zone.
San Jose pulled their goalie against the Blues last night with about 5 minutes left. The Blues not only got an empty net goal, but it came on a wide shot that took a funny bounce into the net.
As I understand it, this is a high risk of giving up a goal, for relatively low increased odds of scoring a goal, so not worth it.
I wonder, why doesn’t the goalkeeper just come out of the goal and play offense himself, like the way a soccer goalkeeper sometimes will?