The Florida Panthers came into this season prepared to make a statement.

After going all the way to the Stanley Cup Final the year before, they wanted to show the hockey world their so-called Cinderella run wasn’t a fluke — that they were the real deal and poised to go deep in the postseason once again.

And they came out strong in their opening game, carrying play across all three periods and outshooting the Minnesota Wild by a margin of 41 to 21.

But it wasn’t to be. The Panthers, who nearly doubled their opponents on the shot counter, lost by a score of 2 – 0. A shutout.

This, however, has not been an uncommon occurrence.

Just over two weeks later, the Pittsburgh Penguins registered over 40 shots in consecutive games. They lost both of them.

And on November 1, the Philadelphia Flyers fell to the Buffalo Sabres by a score of 5 – 2 despite outshooting them 40 to 15.

The dominance in shots just isn’t being rewarded.

So that raises the question: Can NHL teams shoot too much?

It seems silly. Common sense would have you believe that more shots equates to more goals — at least on average. But some may argue that, after a certain point, the value of a shot begins to decline.

That may sound counterintuitive, but it’s not far-fetched.

A high volume of shots could come at the expense of their quality. Or perhaps feeling the puck more often keeps the goaltender mentally locked in.

But, is there any tangible merit to this angle? Does a team that takes 40 shots in a game, for example, score at the same rate as a team that takes 20?

The above graph represents data from over 550 NHL games this season, and it paints a clear picture of declining efficiency.

Teams that have taken 31 or fewer shots in a game have, on average, scored above the mean shooting percentage of 9.7%. Anything higher tends to have average or below-average returns. 

We can see a bit of this come to life in the NHL standings. Of the five teams that lead the league in shots on goal (Philadelphia, Florida, Colorado, Carolina, Los Angeles), only one sits in the top five of goals scored (Colorado). Two of them don’t even finish in the top half (Philadelphia, Los Angeles).

Meanwhile, the Detroit Red Wings and Vancouver Canucks, who rank 22nd and 26th in shots, respectively, are two of the highest scoring teams in the NHL.

There’s a pretty strong correlation between fewer shots and higher shooting percentages. The data makes that clear. But does that actually mean teams can shoot too much in a single game?

The answer is no.

While organizations with higher shot totals don’t convert as efficiently as their peers, they still average more goals per game. After all, 8.4% of 38 is still more than 10.8% of 28 (3.19 vs. 3.02 for those not wanting to do the math).

In fact, teams that outshoot their opponents win 53.7% of the time — at least based on results from this season. And though that may not seem like much of an advantage (in fact, it may be much lower than you anticipated), it equates to roughly six extra wins over the course of a year.

That’s why eight of the league’s top 10 teams in shots currently sit in a playoff spot. Only Buffalo and Pittsburgh (who has a positive goal differential) are on the outside looking in.

So, while shooting percentages do tend to decrease, the decline isn’t mathematically significant enough to discourage taking shots. Obviously location and quality play a large role in how many of them actually go in, and puck recovery plays an even bigger role in keeping possession after the ones that don’t — but the overarching data favors taking them over holding back.

For every story of a team losing after putting up 40+ shots, like the ones at the top of this article, there are even more instances of a team going home with a win. So when a player gives the cliché answer of needing to put more pucks on net between periods, maybe they have a point.