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Best NHL goal-scoring openers, closers in 2014-15

Best NHL goal-scoring openers, closers in 2014-15

Goal scoring isn’t just about “how”; frequently, it can be about “when.”

That’s why “game-winning goals” have long since been disregarded as a vital stat in the NHL, insofar as it measures “clutch” players. As the detractors note, a player who scores the third goal in a 7-2 rout gets another notch in the GWG column, which tells us nothing except that he was the last sturdy raindrop before the flood.

I’ve always been more interested in players who definitively score goals to either set the tone or finish a game. They’re not the fanciest stats – more on that later – but they’re always good for a glimpse at who does the heavy lifting for teams.

First up are “first goals” (naturally), and here are this season’s numbers through Sunday night’s games:

NHL
NHL

These are players who set the tone by scoring the first goal in a game for either team.

Ovechkin was second to Chris Kunitz (14) with 13 first-goals last season.

It's no surprise that some of the NHL's leading scorers are the ones that hit this list -- they get the most ice time and, well, they score a lot of goals -- so it's interesting to see the players that don't rank in the top 10 for goal scorers rank highly in first goals. Marchand scoring the first goal in six of his 45 games. Eberle scoring the first goal in six of his 13 goals. (Too bad Edmonton can't hold a lead.)

Here's some weirdness: Patrick Kane has 25 goals. Only one of them have been the first goal of the game.

OK, on to closers. Here are the empty net goal leaders in the NHL:

NHL
NHL

Nearly half of Joe Thornton's goals have come with the opposing net empty, and a third of Henrik Sedin's have. Thornton didn't even have one last season. Nutty.

Here are the OT goal leaders:

Alex Ovechkin, Tyson Barrie and James Neal lead the league with three OT goals apiece last season. Again, this is heavily weighed towards the players who earn the most ice time; but that Tarasenko sure does score some big goals.

In the shootout, P.A. Parenteau has four shootout-deciding goals, followed by Okposo and Toews with three.

In the future, the NHL.com stats pages could get a little more indepth with these numbers. There are plans, in the site's overhaul of its numbers pages, to break this stuff down into goals that sent games to OT and goals by period and the like for players. Which is going to really shed light on who scores the most important goals of the game, not just the seventh one in that 7-2 win.

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