League Leaders: Wraparounds
by Hawerchuk on Nov 12, 2009 10:00 AM EST
3 comments
What can you say about wraparounds? You just don't see them very often anymore. As a distinct type of shot, they're by far the least common of those tracked by the NHL. And, as it turns out, they're not a particularly high-percentage play:
| ES | ES | PP | PP | |||
| SOG | G | SPCT | SOG | G | SPCT | |
| Total | 3673 | 197 | 5.3 | 407 | 35 | 8.4 |
| Home | 1905 | 108 | 5.7 | 228 | 18 | 7.9 |
| Away | 1768 | 89 | 5.0 | 179 | 16 | 8.9 |
So who leads the league in these low-percentage shots? Again, there's somewhat of a bias at some rinks, so let's look at wraparounds on the road since the lockout:
| Wraparounds | Goals | |
| Ryan Smyth | 31 | 2 |
| Eric Staal | 25 | 4 |
| Richard Zednik | 23 | 0 |
| Jason Blake | 22 | 1 |
| Rick Nash | 22 | 1 |
| Tim Taylor | 21 | 0 |
| Brett McLean | 21 | 1 |
| Thomas Vanek | 20 | 0 |
| Michal Handzus | 19 | 1 |
| Marian Hossa | 18 | 0 |
Smyth is again the league leader, but he hasn't been particularly effective. If we include wraparounds credited to him by his home scorer and his itchy trigger finger, Smyth is just 5-for-89 (5.6%) since the lockout. Zednik is 0-for-40. Bottom line: the wraparound was a cute move in 1980; now everybody knows it's coming.
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Not only do we know it's coming
But, speaking as a goalie myself, the lateral game in the past 15 years has advanced to the point where, when I see someone pulling behind the net, I genuinely HOPE he’ll try a wraparound – it’s much easier to make myself look big against the post than stop a well-placed pass to the slot.
The thing about a wraparound is, while the effect over the year has dropped drastically, it can create second chance opportunities, so I’m curious what the Goals/60 is after a wraparound shot.
For the shot in itself, it’s only real useful if you’re going behind the net with real speed and have the goalie caught.
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