Empty net goals should sit in their own column

Two goals in the same game are not worth the same, and the scoring race pretends otherwise every season.

Two goals in a game are not worth the same thing, and the scoring leaderboard treats them as identical.

The last ninety seconds of a one-goal hockey game are now a specific event with its own rules. The trailing team pulls the goalie earlier than teams used to, sometimes with two minutes left, and the leading team is defending a six-on-five while trying to get a stick on a loose puck and flip it two hundred feet into a net the size of a barn door. Roughly one in twelve or one in fifteen goals across a season arrives this way, depending on the league and the year, and the number has been drifting upward because coaches got braver about the early pull.

Those goals go straight into the same column as a breakaway finish in the second period. Same weight in the scoring race, same weight in a contract negotiation, same weight in the argument you have with your friend about who had a better year.

They should not be. Not because they are worthless, because they are not; sealing a game is a real skill and being the player your coach trusts on the ice in that situation is a compliment. But the shot itself is closer to a free throw taken with nobody on the court. The scoring player is usually a penalty killer who happens to be out there, and the assist is often a defenceman who blocked something and got lucky with the carom.

I would keep two numbers. Goals, and goals with a goaltender in the net. Everyone would still see both. The second one would be the one people quote, and within a season the language would sort itself out.

There is a knock-on effect worth naming. Because empty netters are counted flat, players who kill penalties and take defensive zone starts get a small statistical subsidy that partly offsets the punishment their usage inflicts on their plus-minus and their shot share. Take the subsidy away and you would see how badly those roles are represented by counting stats, which might be the most useful thing about doing it.

Right now a puck slid down the ice at an unguarded net counts the same as beating the best goalie in the world glove side. That is a strange thing to have agreed to.