Score Effects. You may be familiar with this term, but for the uninitiated, a brief explanation. Score Effects is a term used to describe the way teams play in various score situations at full strength (5v5) during a game. When the game is tied or at “Score Close” we tend to see a truer measure of a team’s real strategy and playing ability. Score Close is defined as full strength play when the game is tied or within 1 goal in the first or second period. In the third period, Score Close is a tie game.
When the score is not close, i.e. a team has a 2 or more goal lead in the first or second period, we often see Score Effects come into play. Often when a team has a lead like this, it will play more conservatively. The team goes into a defensive shell to protect the lead. This is usually with the aim of reducing risk or playing it safe. The team down by 2 or more goals wants to bring the score even so it will often take more risk and play a more aggressive style offensively.
These two strategies combine to result in the trailing team making a big offensive push and the leading team struggling to get out of its defensive zone. Essentially, the leading team ends up being bombarded with shots, which we can all agree is far more risky than cycling the puck in the offensive zone, so many people feel that going into a defensive shell with a lead is a mistake. Regardless of the wisdom behind such a strategy, it happens very regularly and with profound effects on the shot totals in a game. This is why you will often see different shot based metrics include a note that the data is from a Score Close situation so it is not artificially inflated or deflated by Score Effects.
While doing some research, I decided to look at shot rates for different teams in a Score Effects situation. If some teams are better at 5v5 play than others, certainly the same must hold true of teams trying to dig themselves out of a hole or keep their opponent from doing so. Initially, I wanted to cover this in one post; however, I came to my senses and realized that would be foolish.
For the first installment in what should be a two or three part series, we will focus on the team playing with the lead. To do this, we will look at shooting and possession metrics for a team when Up 2 or more goals and compare them to how the teams perform at Score Close. When doing a team specific analysis, many more factors such as player usage and deployment, etc. would be considered; however, because the purpose here is to get an overview of the league that type of in-depth team specific analysis is not particularly practical.
