Who is the Kings Most Accurate Shooting D-Man?
March 27, 2012 3 Comments
There has been a lot of frustration this year from fandom regarding, not just the number of shots from the point, but also how inaccurate they seem to be. So which Kings defensemen have been the best at hitting the net?
| Player | Goals | Shots on Goal | Missed Shots | Total | On Net % |
| Martinez | 2 | 45 | 17 | 64 | 73.4% |
| Scuderi | 1 | 51 | 23 | 75 | 69.3% |
| Doughty | 5 | 88 | 46 | 139 | 66.9% |
| Mitchell | 4 | 75 | 43 | 122 | 64.8% |
| Voynov | 4 | 49 | 31 | 84 | 63.1% |
| Greene | 4 | 59 | 45 | 108 | 58.3% |
| Total = | 66.0% |
- Obviously the answer is Alec Martinez!
- Rob Scuderi is way higher than I thought he would be.
- Last place is no suprise.
- And what of our long lost Jack MF Johnson? He would be 2nd on this list at 71.1%. Consider my crow eaten on this one.
- But how do these compare to other teams? Well let’s look at the league leaders in scoring, the Penguins:
| Player | Goals | Shots on Goal | Missed Shots | Total | On Net % |
| Martin | 1 | 69 | 24 | 94 | 74.5% |
| Letang | 3 | 75 | 27 | 105 | 74.3% |
| Engelland | 4 | 75 | 35 | 114 | 69.3% |
| Michalek | 2 | 62 | 31 | 95 | 67.4% |
| Niskanen | 1 | 70 | 39 | 110 | 64.5% |
| Orpik | 2 | 34 | 27 | 63 | 57.1% |
| Total = | 67.9% |
- Well it doesn’t look so bad now does it?
Now, let’s take a closer year-by-year look at the Kings most scrutinized Defenseman, Drew Doughty:
| Doughty | Goals | Shots on Goal | Missed Shots | Total | On Net % |
| 2008-09 | 3 | 67 | 35 | 105 | 66.7% |
| 2009-10 | 6 | 62 | 40 | 108 | 63.0% |
| 2010-11 | 6 | 69 | 48 | 123 | 61.0% |
| 2011-12 | 5 | 88 | 46 | 139 | 66.9% |
| Total = | 64.4% |
- He has produced more shots at the net this year than any other (by a wide margin) as well as at his most accurate rate, yet they aren’t going in.
- Well maybe he is just taking too many poor quality shots? NO! Wrong. His Shot Distance of 47.2 is by far the closest to the net on the team amongst defensemen.
- The only logical conclusion to come to then is that Hockey God is punishing him for his hold out.
*all stats are at Even Strength and courtesy of the lovely and talented behindthenet.ca
Cool breakdown. Greener is getting dangerously close to sending half his shots wide…
You inspired me to take a look at how their shots+misses compare on a per-60 minutes of ES TOI basis (I took the TOI numbers from NHL.com). Here’s what I came up with:
Player ES TOI (min) shots+misses/60min ES
Martinez 585 6.56
Scuderi 1355 3.32
Doughty 1342 6.21
Mitchell 1247 5.87
Voynov 763 6.61
Greene 1031 6.29
Those shots/60 numbers are surprisingly uniform (to me).
Main reason the shot totals are going up, and the goals are going down for DD, is because the Kings system is the same as it has been for years.
Low to high, Fire from the point, look for rebounds. If you do something long enough, the other teams will learn how to defend against it. The Kings offense has suffered tremendously from other teams knowing how to defend against this team, and that’s why they were 30th in offense for most of the season.
Teams will give the Kings that shot, but box out better, and allow the goalie to see the shot, and control the rebound. Since the main reason for the point shot is rebound recovery by players crashing the net, If you can stop screens, you neutralize the point shot, and all the guys crashing the net.
I just wish Doughty wouldn’t telegraph his shots so much by always winding up for the big clapper and just focus on getting his shot through traffic. I can’t help but think if he did that he’d get even more shots through and grease out a couple more goals.