Where NHL Goals Come From and Why the Best Chances Go In

A shot through the legs, a wrist shot under the crossbar, a deflection in traffic and an overtime tap-in can all look very different. They often have something in common: the attacking team has made the goaltender react before he can get comfortably set.

Understanding scoring means asking three separate questions. Where was the puck released or redirected? What happened immediately beforehand? And where did it cross the goal line? The first two usually tell us more about how a chance was created than the final photograph of an open corner.

This guide explains the slot, net-front deflections, passes across the ice, shot selection, scoring by defencemen and the unusual conditions in the final minute. Season totals below refer to the completed 2025–26 NHL regular season. Historical studies are identified separately; their percentages should not be mistaken for current league totals.

The numbers at a glance

The scoring denominator matters. Individual goals scored during regulation and overtime are the appropriate basis for comparing player positions. A shootout-winning addition to the final game score is not an individual goal credited to the successful shooter. Do not mix those two accounting systems.

Where on the ice are the most dangerous shots taken

The best starting point is the slot: the central attacking area in front of the goal, between the faceoff circles. Its lower portion leads directly into the crease and the space just outside it. Chances become especially threatening when the shooter can receive the puck there without immediate stick pressure.

From a central position, the shooter has more net available than from a sharp angle. Getting closer also reduces the goaltender's reaction time. A defender who steers an attacker toward the boards may still concede a shot, but has often improved the goalie's situation.

A close shot is not automatically a good shot. A puck jammed into a set goalie's pad from beside the post can be less dangerous than a quick finish farther out after a cross-ice pass. Distance, angle, defensive pressure and what the goalie has just had to do all matter.

The familiar home-plate diagram is a useful teaching picture, rather than a universal statistical definition. Different data providers draw their danger areas differently. NHL EDGE has its own shot-location regions, while other analytics systems use different boundaries and event adjustments. A high-danger percentage should always identify its source. [5, 6]

Where shots come from is different from where goals come from

A team can spend a shift shooting from the point and still score when a forward redirects the puck beside the crease. The play began far from the net; the decisive contact happened close to it.

There are also many shots from the circles, the high slot and the blue line that never become goals. Defenders protect the middle, so attackers frequently release from the space available to them. Counting where attempts occur answers a different question from counting where successful finishes occur.

That distinction makes raw shot totals incomplete. Imagine one team taking 15 clear, unscreened shots from outside and another producing six chances from the low slot after passes or rebounds. The first team leads the shot count; the second may have created the better scoring opportunities. Those numbers are an illustration, not an NHL match report.

To judge a team's attack, watch whether it gets pucks and players into the middle, whether it can pass through defensive layers, and whether the goalie has a clean view. Public expected-goals models incorporate factors such as distance, angle, shot type, preceding events and manpower. They still cannot capture every detail of an individual chance. [7]

Five-hole high corners and the space above the goalie

The five-hole is the opening between the goaltender's legs. Other targets include the space above either pad, beneath an arm, over a shoulder and just inside either post. The upper corners are visually memorable because a successful shot can appear almost impossible to stop.

But the best target changes while the play develops. A goalie standing tall presents a different picture from one in the butterfly. A goalie sliding across the crease presents another. A puck carrier who waits too long may watch an opening disappear.

Shooting high can work when the goaltender drops and leaves room above the pads or shoulders. It also carries a cost: a small error can send the puck over the crossbar. Shooting low can exploit an opening between the pads or produce a rebound. It can also run straight into a well-positioned pad.

Aiming for a corner is therefore not a complete scoring strategy. The shooter needs to recognize which part of the net is available and release before the goalie or defender can close it. From a tight angle, an apparent opening may be smaller than it looks on television.

A reliable answer to whether most NHL goals go five-hole, glove side or high blocker requires a defined tracking study. It would need consistent categories, all goals in the selected season and a decision about tips, rebounds and empty nets. The public shot-location sources cited here do not supply that full breakdown. A rink-coordinate chart cannot establish where the puck entered the net.

Why moving the goalie east to west matters

East to west means moving the puck laterally across the attacking zone. The dangerous version is a pass that changes the shooting angle substantially and is followed by a quick release. It forces the goalie to leave one set position and establish another.

The term royal road is associated with former NHL goalie and analyst Steve Valiquette. In the scoring-chance context, it describes a central dividing line in the attacking zone. A pass crossing it below the tops of the circles can force a particularly demanding lateral adjustment.

An OMHA account of Valiquette's historical work reported that these passes preceded 22 percent of the goals he reviewed. That figure describes his sample and definitions; it is not a verified percentage for every goal in the 2025–26 season. Its enduring value is the mechanism it highlights: a rapid change of angle can prevent a goalie from being set at release. [8]

Not every sideways pass creates that advantage. A slow exchange between two defencemen at the blue line may give the goalie ample time to reset. A pass intercepted in the slot creates no shot at all. The attacking benefit depends on completion, speed, location and the receiver's ability to shoot immediately.

The receiver can help before the puck arrives by preparing the stick, opening a shooting lane and deciding whether a one-timer or a short catch-and-release is practical. An extra stickhandle may give the goalie the time the pass was meant to take away.

Where deflections and tips are scored

The typical attacking tip occurs in front of the goal or in the low slot, with a forward placing the stick in the path of an incoming puck. The original shooter may be at the point, near a faceoff circle or along the wall. The redirect changes the puck's path late in its journey.

That creates two problems for the goalie. A player may obstruct the initial view, and the puck may then change direction after the goalie has begun reacting. A small change near the crease can be decisive because there is little time left to adjust.

A high-slot tip is another variation: a player farther from the crease redirects a teammate's shot or hard pass. A deflection off a defender's stick or body can also produce a goal without being an intentional attacking skill play.

Tips and deflections are recorded as separate shot types in some datasets, and the boundary between them can be subjective. Historical analysis published by Gabriel Desjardins found their average locations very similar, approximately 15 to 16 feet from the net in his sample. That is useful context, not a current-season league average. [9]

Goal attribution also changes the positional story. If a forward legally tips a defenceman's shot into the net, the forward receives the goal and the defenceman may receive an assist. A defensive player can therefore create a goal without appearing in the total for goals scored by defencemen.

Are wrist shots more important than slap shots

Wrist and snap shots offer a quick release with comparatively little preparation. The shooter can change the release point, shoot while moving or release around a defender. The full slap shot generates speed, but its wind-up can give a defender or goalie more warning.

That does not make the slap shot obsolete. A one-timer after a lateral pass, a shot through a screen or a point shot aimed for a teammate's stick can be highly useful. The relevant question is whether the shot fits the available time and the intended play.

Historical analysis provides an illustration of the balance. Desjardins' published table of initial shots, excluding rebounds, attributed 43.7 percent of goals to wrist shots, 15.5 percent to snap shots and 16.7 percent to slap shots. Wrist and snap shots together accounted for 59.2 percent in that sample. Those are archival figures, not a 2025–26 shot-type census. [9]

These categories overlap in ordinary conversation. A rebound can be finished with a wrist shot, and a one-timer can be a slap shot or a shorter release. A statistical table generally assigns the final shot one label; it does not describe the entire attacking sequence.

How much scoring comes from defencemen

StatMuse's positional total lists 1,226 goals by defencemen in the 2025–26 regular season. Using the published league total of 8,086 regulation-and-overtime goals gives 15.2 percent, or approximately one goal in every 6.6. [1, 2]

That is the share of goals credited to players classified as defencemen. It does not mean that 15.2 percent were scored from the blue line. Defencemen can join a rush, arrive in the slot or finish at the back post. Forwards can shoot from the point.

Nor does it measure everything defencemen contribute offensively. A pass that breaks the first defensive layer, a puck kept inside the blue line or a shot that creates a rebound can all help generate a goal credited to someone else.

When a broadcast praises an attacking defenceman, watch both the finish and the setup. Joining at the right moment can create an extra passing option; joining at the wrong moment can leave the team exposed to a counterattack. The goal total records the successful finish, rather than the full balance of those decisions.

What Gretzky meant about taking the shot

The line widely attributed to Wayne Gretzky is: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.” The Los Angeles Kings have repeated that wording in their own coverage. [10]

It is an excellent reminder that hesitation can waste a real opportunity. A player who keeps waiting for a perfect opening may allow a defender to recover or a goalie to square up.

It is less useful as an instruction to shoot indiscriminately. An available pass can create a much better chance for a teammate. A blocked shot can end possession or start an opposing rush. Shooting from a poor angle with no screen and no support is a different decision from releasing quickly into a temporary opening.

The practical interpretation is to recognize and use a worthwhile chance. Sometimes that means shooting immediately. Sometimes it means making the pass that lets someone else do so.

How many goals are scored in the final minute

First define the minute. Here it means the last 60 seconds of the third period, from 19:00 elapsed until regulation ends. It does not mean the last minute of every period, the last minute of overtime or the minute before whichever goal eventually ends the game.

A historical study by data researcher Jon Schwabish counted 6,125 goals in that third-period window across its regular-season sample from 1995–96 through 2018–19, including empty-net and penalty-shot goals. Removing those categories reduced the count to 2,909. The difference is 3,216 goals, or 52.5 percent of the inclusive count. That difference combines the two excluded categories; it should not be described as an empty-net-only total. [4]

The study establishes why the final minute deserves separate treatment. It does not establish the exact count for 2025–26, and this article does not substitute the historical aggregate for that missing season tally.

There are two very different scoring situations late in a close game. The trailing team may remove its goalie and attack with an extra skater, while the leading team can shoot at an unguarded net. Both can increase scoring, but their goals tell different stories.

A complete season audit should separate goals into an empty net from goals scored by the team using an extra attacker, and identify tying and go-ahead goals separately. It should also count games containing a final-minute goal. Ten goals do not necessarily mean ten different games: more than one can occur in the same final minute.

The historical study also reported a figure covering the last minute of all three regulation periods. That is a broader question. Combining those windows and calling the result the final minute of the game would overstate the answer.

How often games end in overtime or a shootout

Vertize Sports' season-by-season compilation of NHL game results lists 326 of 1,312 games going beyond regulation in 2025–26. Of those, 207 ended with an overtime goal and 119 reached a shootout. [3]

The overtime goal count is therefore 207: sudden death allows only one goal in each of those games. Shootout conversions are a separate statistic. A successful shootout attempt does not add to a player's regular-season goal total.

The same compilation lists 194 overtime decisions and 77 shootouts in 2024–25. The comparison shows why a season label matters: shootouts accounted for approximately 5.9 percent of all games that year, compared with 9.1 percent in 2025–26. [3]

Playoff hockey needs a separate analysis. NHL playoff games do not end in shootouts, and their overtime format differs from the regular season. Combining playoff and regular-season overtime figures would obscure the effect of those different conditions.

What to watch on the next scoring play

Start before the release. Follow the pass, the screen and the goalie's feet. Was the goalie set and looking directly at the puck, or still moving? Did a defender lose the shooter's stick? Did the puck change direction close to the crease?

Then identify the final contact. A shot launched from the point can become a forward's tip-in. A save can become a rebound opportunity in a much more dangerous position. A routine-looking finish into an open side can be the reward for an excellent pass.

Finally, look at the game situation. An empty-net goal, a five-on-five finish from the slot and a three-on-three overtime winner are all goals, but they arise from different opportunities. Understanding those differences explains far more than simply choosing between five-hole and top corner.