The NHL’s scoring surge continues unabated

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The National Hockey League has been increasingly vocal over the past two decades about increasing offence. And the league, to its credit, has frequently put its thumb on the proverbial scale – tweaks like downsizing goaltending equipment and modifying officiating standards were always meant to stimulate offensive play. But the expected scoring surge was slow to materialize.

That was true up until about five years ago. Since that point in time, we have seen a steady rise in scoring across all game states. There’s a fascinating debate, one that can’t be solved today, over how to apportion the credit for what’s driving the increase. How much do you weigh things like rule changes versus longer-term initiatives, like the expansion of international recruiting pipelines to enhanced player development programs?

At any rate, scoring has been up for some time now, and it’s created a more compelling and entertaining product. In years past, high-scoring Octobers gave way as the season wore on, finishing with healthy servings of three-goal games in March. Now, scoring is more entrenched over the full year.

I wanted to see what the opening week of this NHL season looked like, having been fascinated by the uptick in scoring in recent years. Low and behold, it’s up again, with the league seeing 6.4 goals per game to open the year:

We are talking about 3 per cent of the season, so we are still working with very small samples right now, but 12 teams – headlined by the New York Islanders (4.9), Boston Bruins (4.6), and Pittsburgh Penguins (4.5) – are scoring at least three goals per game.

What’s also notable, and why I continue to be bullish on this trend sustaining itself, is the underlying numbers are also up. Yes,