Using the Numbers
Too many times you may read a story about goals per game increasing/decreasing or the number of games in overtime being drastically less or more from season to season and you’re given little data and a lot of opinion. I thought instead of feeding you opinion I’d lay out some numbers for you and leave interpretation - and if there can even be any - to you. Are we on the road for higher scoring games? Less overtimes?
I figure we’d go back to the 2000-01 preseason and start from there:
2000-01 preseason
Games: 122
Goals per game: 5.49
Games in ot: 26
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 21.31%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 30.77%
Just to clarify: I give both the games that actually went into overtime and the percentage of games that went into overtime because the number of games per year in the preseason and differs the percentage can drastically change with just a small number of games (but I did want to save everyone the math time percentage-wise).
2000-01 regular season
Games: 1230
Goals per game: 5.51
Games in ot: 274
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 22.28%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 44.53%
2001-02 preseason
Games: 109
Goals per game: 5.55
Games in ot: 19
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 17.43%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 31.58%
2001-02 regular season
Games: 1230
Goals per game: 5.23
Games in ot: 269
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 21.87%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 44.61%
2002-03 preseason
Games: 120
Goals per game: 5.89
Games in ot: 17
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 14.17%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 47.06%
2002-03 regular season
Games: 1230
Goals per game: 5.31
Games in ot: 313
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 25.45%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 49.84%
2003-04 preseason
Games: 124
Goals per game: 5.23
Games in ot: 22
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 17.74%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 45.45%
2003-04 regular season
Games: 1230
Goals per game: 5.14
Games in ot: 315
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 25.61%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 46.03%
And the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
2005-06 preseason
Games: 111
Goals per game: 6.25
Games in ot: 22
Percentage of all games that went in ot: 19.82%
Percentage of games in ot that ended in a win: 36.36%
Wait a second now, those games that didn’t end in a win now end in a shootout, and the winning team is awarded a “goal”. While goals are literally scored, they’re not during the course of normal play, so let’s adjust:
Shootout games: 14
Goals per game adjusted for shootout: 6.13
So what’s your take? Do preseason numbers give any real indication about what the regular season has to offer? Does the small increase in goals per game this preseason really mean we have more offense to look forward to? Will we see more or less overtimes - and when we do - might more of them end before the end buzzer sounds?
Update Oct 5, 5pm: Made a simple math error, adjusted overtime numbers.
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