New York Rangers: Who should be in the shootout?

The New York Rangers won a recent shootout against the Colorado Avalanche when Kevin Shattenkirk notched the decisive goal. Some were surprised when David Quinn sent him out as the third shooter.  Should they have been?

The NHL shootout has been derided as a “skills competition” and a lousy way to decide a hockey game. Critics have a point.  There are a number of players who are really good at the shootout and most of them are not elite goal scorers.

The shootout became a fixture of the NHL in 2005-06.  Since then, five players have taken part in over 100 shootouts. Those five are led by Mikko Koivu, followed by Radim Vrbata, Zach Parise, Alex Ovechkin and Joe Pavelski.  None of those five are anywhere near the top of the list when it comes to success rate.

In the same time, 220 players have participated in a minimum of 20 shootouts. Of the 220, only eight players have a success rate of 50% or better. One is a Ranger favorite while most of the others are not household names.   The top scorer is Slava Kozlov followed by Aleksander Barkov, Jacob Josefson, T.J Oshie, Erik Christensen, Mats Zuccarello, Ales Kotalik and Tyler Seguin.

Selecting who takes part in the shootout is a fascinating process.  All Ranger fans remember how Jaromir Jagr refused to participate. He had a good reason.  In ten years he tried to score in the shootout ten times and was successful only twice for a lousy 20% success rate. He hated it so much that in three seasons as a Ranger while scoring 109 goals,  he never took part in any of their 42 shootouts.

Over the last three seasons here are the top five goal scorers in the NHL:  Alex Ovechkin (140), Patrick Kane (115), Vladimir Tarasenko (114), Brad Marchand (112) and Nikita Kucherov (112).   In that same time period, all five except Ovechkin have been failed 73%  of the time or more on the shootout.  Ovi has scored  44% of the time (compared to his career rate of 31%).

Why Shattenkirk?

So, how did David Quinn pick Mats Zuccarello, Mika Zibanejad and Kevin Shattenkirk to take the first three shots against Colorado?  Was it a hunch?  Did Quinn know something we didn’t know?  Was he trying to build Shattenkirk’s confidence after a one game benching?

The answer is much simpler. Who are the top three current Rangers in career shootout success? Yup, Mats Zuccarello (52.2%), Mika Zibanejad (42.5%) and Kevin Shattenkirk (34.5%).

Looking ahead, don’t be surprised to see him pick Jimmy Vesey who is two for five (40%) in his career.  Kevin Hayes has made one of two shots. Ryan Spooner has four goals in 16 attempts (25%) as a Boston Bruin.   No other player on the Rangers roster has scored a shootout goal, so after those seven players, Quinn will have to make his selections based on how they do in practice.

And if you were wondering who are the worst shootout players in the NHL, you have to ask why coaches still throw Tomas Plekanec out there.  He has scored only four times in 30 tries (13.3%).  There is a pair of NHLers who are still looking for their first shootout goal after a number of tries. Los Angeles King Tyler Toffoli has failed ten times and Columbus Blue Jacket Nick Foligno has missed 11 times.

What’s ahead

And for all of those Ranger fans who are hoping that Artemi Panarin makes his way to Madison Square Garden as a free agent, here’s another reason. The “Bread Man” is  a whiz at the shootout.  Of all active players with ten or more shootouts attempts, Panarin has a league leading 64.7% success rate based on 11 goals in 17 tries .

Ranger fans can only hope that a shootout diamond in the rough can be found among Pavel Buchnevich (0-2 so far),  Filip Chytil, Brett Howden or Vinni Lettieri.  It will be fun to see how it turns out.