Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I crunched some numbers, and like I suspected shot totals are up by a MASSIVE margin this season—for whatever reason. Through the first 51 games last year there were 23 teams who tallied +35 SOG (22.5%), and 6 games in which that total crested 40 (5.8%). But this year so far through 50 games, teams have fired +35 SOG 43 times (43% = +20.5%), and 23(!) times that number has been over 40 (23% = +17.2%). Last year there were a total of 5 games in which one team managed +50 SOG, and just a mere week into the season that has already happened once.
While the Flames have surrendered too high a number of SOG in three of their first four games, this is less of a concern given the current league-wide trend.
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I can't recall at the moment which interview it was in, but on the Flames site in one of the Gulutzan interviews or scrums (I think it was either the Anaheim post-game or from the next days practice) he revealed that there was a league wide mandate this season for shot counters to start counting basically every time the puck reaches the net as a shot -even if it is inadvertent. The reason was to cut down on discrepancies between buildings. He said that he expected shot totals to be much higher this season.