I’ve seen the pulling-the-goalie trick work quite a bit.
It’s basically the same thing as the prevent defense or the Hail Mary; it deosn’t make a damned bit of difference if you lose by one goal or two. My own perception is that the number of goals scored by using this tactic almost certainly exceeds the number of games lost because the team gave up an empty netter would would have scored later on even strength and tied it anyway.
Look at it this way; the AVERAGE NHL team scores about 2.75 goals per game, which means that in the average 2-minute span, they will score about .1 goals. Given that a team leading in the last two minutes will invariably drop into a trap defense and just choke you to death, on even strength you will probably not score in that situation - losing by one goal, last two minutes of the game - more than 5% of the time. In other words, if you don’t pull your goalie, you’re toast. These days, goals are just not easy enough to score for you to take the chance that you’ll score a clean goal.
Being a Canadian who’s watched and played hockey his whole life, I would guess the tactic works at least 10% of the time, which makes it worth it. The sixth man makes a big difference; you can have two forecheckers AND two guys guarding the blue line and still have traffic in front of the net. I’d argue that the Vancouver goal was NOT just pure luck; it was having six men in the zone that allowed that pressure to take place, which is what led to the scramble and ensuing goal.
Okay, we’ve got anecdotes, and stats about scoring on an empty net, and scoring by goalies on an empty net. But how about my OP-- actually scoring after pulling the goalie.
I ask because people often talk about home ice advantage-- but a study (in the Journal of Sports Behaviour, I believe) indicates that during the playoffs, home ice is actually a liability.
Barbarian, IIRC official NHL scoresheets do note the time at which the goaltender was pulled as well as the time of every goal scored. It should be possible to pull the scoresheets on every game this season and look. I don’t know of anyone who has actually done this. Feel free to write Gary Bettman and inquire as to how you can go about doing this.
Barbarian, why don’t you look at the power play stats? Pulling the goalie gives you an offensive advantage very similar to a power play (slightly less because 5-on-4 is better than 6-on-5). I’m not much of a hockey fan, but I seem to remember that teams convert on a 2-minute penalty about 20% of the time. So I imagine that if you pull the goalie for one minute you’d have about 10% success.
Obviously you will have more “failures”–that is, empty net goals–than successes. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad strategy. The “marginal utility” of a game-tying goal is huge, whereas the marginal utility of a goal that puts you down by 2 instead of 1 is small and declines to nil as the clock ticks toward zero.
Being too lazy to figure out the leaguewide average for power play success, but the high in the league was 23.8% (Detroit) and the low was 11.8% (Calgary).
I’m not a big hockey fan, but the above statement [“go ahead goal into an empty net”] seems to be based on the mistaken assumption that a team would pull the goalie while the score is tied. An empty-net goal would merely create a two-goal cushion, as opposed to a one-goal lead.
I have seen a team pull its goaltender when tied on rare circumstances late in the season when that team is on the bubble and the difference between two points and one can make the difference between making the playoffs or not. However, this is far less common now that we have the 5 minute regular-season overtime.
A couple of things. Number 1, equating a 6 on 5(ie pulled goalie) with a 5 on 4(ie power play) doesn’t really work. Sure, you have the one man advantage, but the extra two players really cut down on the open ice: There are lots of sticks around to block passes and deflect shots, and a lot of bodies to stop shots before they get to the net. That being said, it’s better than 5 on 5. To repeat what several people have said, you have nothing to lose, like a 3-point shot from your own end in a basketball game to beat the buzzer. Chances are you’ll miss, but it costs you nothing to try.
From A Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Hockey (1976) by Gerald Eskenazi:
This was written before large-scale expansion, but the basics are still true. Leave your goalie in and you lose for sure. Pull him, and you’ll lose 90% of the time, but have a 10% chance of tieing the game. It’s not a hard decision.
I saw one earlier this year, Brendan Shanahan (Detroit) was credited with the goal, as the last one to touch the puck. Can’t for the life of me remember the guy who scored it.
Grace…in Oz…and missing hockey. Not, yanno, that my Red Wings are still in it, but…sigh
I asked a friend of mine who is in a hockey research group and there is no consensus about the effectiveness of pulling the goalie.
Supposedly, the old Soviet powerhouse teams of the 1970s and 1980s would never pull the goalie as their studies (which are still likely classified material under that bureaucracy) showed that pulling the goalie was a sucker’s play.
However, those Soviet teams were so deep and so talented that they probably knew that if they just kept bringing out fresh bodies very quickly and changing up frequently, they could wear out a team toward the end and score at even strength.
Does anyone remember if the Soviets pulled the goalie at the end of “The Miracle on Ice” game in 1980. I don’t think they did.
Don’t forget, though, that the Soviets were often playing in short-duration tournaments where goal differentials could come into play in the standings.
For example, the world junior championships until recently had no playoff round - standings were determined by wins/losses in the round-robin, and in the event of a tie, goals scored/allowed. Losing by one goal in that situation is better than losing by two, therefore pulling the goalie could put you at a disadvantage.
Vancouver has actually scored 2 goals against the Wild in this very series by pulling the goalie, and Minnesota has managed 0 empty-net goals. Vancouver scored the game-tying goal in game #1, and they scored their second goal in game #2 (which ended 3-2) with the 6th man on the ice. Seems effective to me. Not quite as effective as actually leading a game (as they did in game #3), but not too shabby all the same. Empty netters are far more often the result of pulling the goalie, though, IMHO.
Vancouver has actually scored 2 goals against the Wild in this very series by pulling the goalie, and Minnesota has managed 0 empty-net goals. Vancouver scored the game-tying goal in game #1, and they scored their second goal in game #2 (which ended 3-2) with the 6th man on the ice. Seems effective to me. Not quite as effective as actually leading a game (as they did in game #3), but not too shabby all the same. Empty netters are far more often the result of pulling the goalie, though, IMHO.
As for home ice advantage, in hockey there is some reality to it. The home team gets to put their line on the ice after the visiting team, allowing for the home team to put out their best line against whatever is waiting on the ice for them.
Vancouver has actually scored 2 goals against the Wild in this very series by pulling the goalie, and Minnesota has managed 0 empty-net goals. Vancouver scored the game-tying goal in game #1, and they scored their second goal in game #2 (which ended 3-2) with the 6th man on the ice. Seems effective to me. Not quite as effective as actually leading a game (as they did in game #3), but not too shabby all the same. Empty netters are far more often the result of pulling the goalie, though, IMHO.
As for home ice advantage, in hockey there is some reality to it. The home team gets to put their line on the ice after the visiting team, allowing for the home team to put out their best line against whatever is waiting on the ice for them.
My college hockey team (Cornell) scored 2 EAG (Extra Attacker Goals) this season. One came a bit too late, as it was following an empty netter scored a bit earlier in the pulled-goalie situation. The other saved the ECAC Championship. Down 2-1 to Harvard (sucks) with a minute to go, we tied it with the goalie pulled with 33 seconds left, then won the game just 1:20 into overtime.