In their first four games of the season, the Helsinki Jokerit have been like machine guns, firing an incredible number of pucks at opposing goalies.
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The defending Cup champions seem pretty serious about defending their title. Their shot totals in the four games were 44, 34, 54 and 48 for an average of 45 shots per game. Belfast is second on that list with 35.33. And that doesn’t include the 56 shots that Helsinki took and had blocked by opposing players like Jake Sanderson who took five pucks off all five of his appendages when the Smurfs played Helsinki.
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A look at the teams that historically put up high shot counts tells you one thing for sure: They also had a lot of points in the standings. Are you guaranteed the Cup if you take a lot of shots? No. Of the Top 10 shot-producing seasons, only 3 resulted in Cup victories (both of Minsk’s title wins and Belfast’s conquest in Season 7).
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Also, this doesn’t seem to be the era of mega-shooting, despite how Helsinki has opened the year. Most of the highest shot totals came before Season 10. Last season, Copenhagen led the league with 34.65 shots per game and that was good enough for 12th all-time on the list of highest shot totals.
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The Tridents under Martin Sayle seem to be better than anyone at revving up the shot totals. Thanks to their strategy as well as Auston Matthews, the late Johnny Gaudreau, Marko Dano and some great depth players, Copenhagen appears seven times on the list of the Top 25 seasons.