New York Islanders Shot Efficiency and Through Percentages

We continue our look at New York Islanders statistics from the 2015-16 season to try and see what can be improved over the offseason. This time, we look at shot efficiency.

In our third analytics focus, we turn our attention to the New York Islanders shot efficiency in an attempt to understand how the Islanders can improve in 2016-17.

We’ve already seen that the Islanders were a negative possession team in 2015-16 with a 49.5% Corsi. We also put forward the notion that this negative possession was not aided by the fact that the Islanders faceoff takers were subpar in creating shooting opportunities and shot suppression after the draw.

In the modern NHL the emphasis is put on puck possession. But puck possession is not measured with a stopwatch but with shot generation. So if the Islanders were negative in puck possession it’s means one of two things: the Isles shot less, or allowed more shots.

SportingCharts.com compiled every teams total shots on goal and shots against to derive a shot efficiency ratio. The New York Islanders ranked a lowly 21 out of 30 teams with a 0.97 shot efficiency.

Any efficiency ratio over 1.00 means a team will generate at least a shot for every single shot given up. A rating under 1.00 means the exact opposite. Meaning they won’t likely respond with a shot once they go down a shot.

Islanders Individual Shooting Stats

Looking at individual numbers between 2014-15 and 2015-16 season shows exactly where the deficiencies are for the Islanders. The Islanders just aren’t taking the same number of shots and shots just aren’t getting to the net.

Hockey Reference tabulates players net shot attempts and players through percentages in both of 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. The net difference for all Islanders players was a -429 in shot attempts and -37 in through percentages.

A team can’t expect to score if it’s not shooting the puck. A -429 shot attempts is a glaring indictment of the Islanders offensive woes last season. The big underachievers in shot attempts are Ryan Strome (-66) and Cal Clutterbuck (-68).

Strome is a big piece of the puzzle going forward for the Islanders, but we need him to get back to his 2014 form. He needs to put himself in a position to shoot or needs to have the confidence to shoot. Clutterbuck still had a successful 2015-16 season so it’s hard to criticize him, but a -68 is a terrible rating that needs to reverse in 2016-17.

Through percentages were a significant negative across the board for the entire team from 2014-15 to 2015-16. It means that not only did the Islanders shoot less, the shots they did generate didn’t even make it to the net.

Next: Isles New Owners Need to Spend

It’s easier said than done, but the solution for the Islanders woes seems fairly straight forward. Find a way to create more shots, and for those shots to get on net. Solving both of those problems will go a long way to restoring this teams offensive to the level we expect it to be at.

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