Today we are going to have a little fun and dive down the rabbit of empty net goals (ENG). We are in the early going so a low-event, unsustainable stat can have a big impact on a player's overall count, shooting percentage, and our perception of how they are performing thus far.

To get us started, let's talk about process. The reports section of Frozen Tools, of course, has a report dedicated to ENG. We will be using that to take a look at players' current performances to date, but also to get some recent history. I ran not only the report for games to this point (11/10), but also for the 20-21 seasons, and the 21-22 seasons.

The first question: are ENG in any way repeatable? In theory they might be. A lot of the factors would likely be out of the player's control, but we might consider a player's usage by the coach, and the overall strength of the team. If a team is never up by one or two goals at the end of a game, players on that team aren't very likely to have an opportunity to score an ENG. Similarly, if a player isn't used by the coach in such situations very often, they are not very likely to put up many goals. Finally, player skill has to factor in somewhere, whether it is long distance accuracy or a power-kill style fast break. So again theoretically, a player who is on a halfway decent team, and has a consistent coach who plays them in these kinds of situations may be able to repeatedly put up ENG.

What do we have for actual data?

In 20-21 there were 172 players who scored an ENG, and the max that any player scored was five (Brad Marchand). Keep in mind this season had only 56 games, so the raw totals are going to be a bit lower than the full season of 21-22.

In 21-22 we see 262 players scoring an ENG, with a high-water mark of nine ENG (Alex Ovechkin).

If we look at both years, we find out there are 98 players who scored at least one ENG in each season. Given the likelihood of noise here though we might want to look to players who put up more than one. If we put the threshold at two, meaning they would have had to score at least two ENG in each year we drop all the way down to 26 players. Further, there are only 13 players who have more than two over the last two seasons. The top producers are listed below.

Name	Pos	Team	G 20-21	ENG 20-21	ENG% 20-21	G 21-22	ENG 21-22	ENG% 21-22
BRAD MARCHAND	L	BOS	29	5	17.2	32	3	9.4
VLADISLAV NAMESTNIKOV	C	T.B	8	5	62.5	16	3	18.8
JAKE GUENTZEL	L	PIT	23	4	17.4	40	6	15
SIDNEY CROSBY	C	PIT	24	4	16.7	31	4	12.9
BRYAN RUST	R	PIT	22	4	18.2	24	4	16.7
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	L	CAR	15	3	20	30	7	23.3
TYLER TOFFOLI	R	CGY	28	3	10.7	20	5	25

What can we learn from this list? Well, they are all offensively skilled players (exception Vladsilav Namestnikov?) on good teams. We can't really assess their opportunity from this report, but I think it is safe to say they were getting it.

If we return briefly to 21-22 as a more recent and sample-wise, more similar season, we can take a look at the breakdown.

Goal Count	Number of Players
1	144
2	68
3	27
4	14
5	2
6	4
7	2
8	0
9	1

The drop off as we increase the goal count is pretty staggering. Eighty-one percent of the players who scored an ENG in 21-22 had only one or two. Given that distribution it does really seem that for the vast majority of players this isn't really something to count on repeating. One other note: of the 262 players who scored an ENG, 42, or 16% of them were defensemen. There was only one who put up more than two, and that was John Carlson with three.

So far in 22-23 here is our leader board.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	G	ENG	ENG%	SOG	SH%	SH% vs goalie
VICTOR OLOFSSON	R	BUF	13	9	3	33.3	38	23.7	17.1
ZACH PARISE	L	NYI	14	4	2	50	34	11.8	6.3
CLAYTON KELLER	L	ARI	12	4	2	50	21	19	10.5
CONNOR MCDAVID	C	EDM	14	14	2	14.3	57	24.6	21.8
LAWSON CROUSE	R	ARI	12	6	2	33.3	26	23.1	16.7
MATT DUCHENE	R	NSH	13	3	2	66.7	31	9.7	3.4
MATTHEW TKACHUK	R	FLA	12	5	2	40	63	7.9	4.9
ALEX TUCH	R	BUF	13	7	2	28.6	33	21.2	16.1
HAMPUS LINDHOLM	D	BOS	13	4	2	50	25	16	8.7

Additionally, there are 52 players who have put up one ENG.

Some quick takeaways:

Victor Olofsson leads the way with three (and had two in the same game). Clearly that pace is going to be hard to maintain for him – it would be about a 19 ENG full season pace. It is also represented in his overall save percentage, which at 23.7 is certainly too high. His ENG count in this case is just another reason to be cautious on Olofsson's future value compared to the production he has currently maintained.

An interesting note here is the number of players who have ENG making up a huge percentage of their total goal scoring to date. I am looking at Zach Parise, Clayton Keller, Matt Duchene, and Matthew Tkachuk (more on Hampus Lindholm in a bit). For Parise I think the ENG are inflating his pace and making him look a bit more valuable than he is (though even 41-point full season pace isn't great). Keller is kind of in that boat as well. He is currently pacing above a point per game, but two of his four goals have come on the empty net. This doesn't seem all that sustainable, as Keller doesn't really have a history of scoring these goals, and well, he is on Arizona so opportunities are going to be limited.If we assume his goal scoring pace going forward is without these two ENGs he is much closer to a 75 than a 90 point pace (assuming his assist rate can sustain).

For Matt Duchene on the other hand, a little bit of luck with the ENG is making up somewhat for a truly abysmal shooting percentage. This is essentially true for Matthew Tkachuk as well. These lower-than-expected shooting percentages, would be truly abysmal without a bit of luck from ENGs. In these cases I am not worried so much as their regular shooting percentages rebounding should make up for the fact that they might not be able to count on more ENGs.

Last but not least, Hampus Lindholm is certainly making the most of his opportunity in Boston with several of their d men out. Well Matt Grzlyck is back, and Charlie MacAvoy will be soon, so this was always going to be short lived, but two ENG already is pretty wild. Last season we only saw one defensemen with more than three and that was over a full season. This is just another reason to not expect this production to continue, though I don't think anyone was really expecting it to.

As a final note I want to return to our list from above. We identified seven players who, over the prior two seasons have been the most consistent at putting up ENGs.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	G	ENG	ENG%	SOG	SH%	SH% vs goalie
JAKE GUENTZEL	L	PIT	9	7	1	14.3	34	20.6	18.2
TYLER TOFFOLI	R	CGY	12	5	0	0	43	11.6	11.6
BRYAN RUST	R	PIT	13	4	0	0	44	9.1	9.1
VLADISLAV NAMESTNIKOV	C	T.B	13	0	0	0	16	0	0
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	L	CAR	13	8	0	0	42	19	19
BRAD MARCHAND	L	BOS	5	4	0	0	17	23.5	23.5
SIDNEY CROSBY	C	PIT	13	6	0	0	40	15	15

Not much happening with this group thus far. Well actually they are all (minus Namestnikov) scoring goals, just not on empty nets. Definitely something to consider going forward and a reason to hope that their goal paces might just be a little better than we would have otherwise thought.

That is all for this week

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