The art of the short-handed goal

John Matisz
January 4, 2011

Being sentenced to the sin bin in hockey is one of the least favorable situations a player can find themselves in. Feelings of guilt, frustration and angst overcome those previous of intensity, concentration and passion on the way to the box.

The condemned player is then forced to rely on their teammates to put forth ample resistance to the pressing opposing squad. The fate of those two or more minutes is unwillingly out of the punished player’s hands.

Every once in a while or an average of 222 times per NHL season since the lockout the liable feelings associated with being penalized are transformed into solace via short-handed goals. Although they’re an uncommon occurrence, short-handed tallies are a noteworthy and intriguing component of the NHL’s past, present and future.

The short-handed goal has co-existed with its cousin, the power-play goal, since the establishment of the penalty – which came with the first set of NHL rules. While the power-play goal achieves the very objective of being a man-up, its cousin not only negates a score by the adversary but registers its own as well.

In essence, the short-handed goal puts the defending team ahead by a goal when the opposite is hypothetically arranged to happen.

Legendary forward penalty killing tandems such as the Red Wings’ Kris Draper/Kirk Maltby and Canadiens’ Doug Jarvis/Bob Gainey did not necessarily become renowned for netting short-handed markers, rather for putting a halt to their antagonists’ pressure. With that said, players who do manage to find the mesh while a man down are examples of multi-tasking at its finest.

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Generally speaking, the goals are mainly produced on broken plays, gritty individual efforts or turnovers, but nevertheless give the penalized team another notch in the score column. This is a massive morale booster since it’s accomplished while simultaneously killing off a penalty. Whether in the playoffs or exhibition competition, the short-handed goal is one of hockey’s largest momentum swingers.

To no surprise, the holder or sharer of 61 NHL records The Great One, Mr. Wayne Gretzky comfortably sits atop the all-time short-handed goals list. His 73 goals are 10 ahead of former teammate Mark Messier and 40 more than active leader, Brian Rolston, currently 13th place in short-handed goals all-time. With Rolston’s career in a downward spiral, wily veteran Mike Modano, with 29, has the opportunity to claim active bragging rights.

In the 2010-11 season, four relative youngsters Frans Neilsen, Claude Giroux, Brad Marchand, Brandon Prust are tied for the league-lead in short-handed snipes at three. They have quite the trek to embark on, however, if they plan on getting their names imprinted in the record books. Mario Lemieux’s 199-point 1988-89 campaign featured an astonishing 13 short-handed goals. The year prior he notched an extremely respectable 10 to boot.

Mike Richards of the Philadelphia Flyers, Patrick Sharp of the Chicago Blackhawks and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning have excelled throughout their career on the penalty kill at both ends of the ice. They are elite offensive talents who take pride in not only shutting down the most gifted players on the other team but shaming them in the process with an occasional goal. Richards, who had three two-men down goals in 2008-09, is the quintessential offensive penalty killer as he made the task of scoring while down on a 5-on-3 look easy.

In celebration of the feat that is the short-handed goal, enjoy these three clips of beautiful man-down markers in the calendar year that just passed:

Mike Richards’ “alpha male” goal

Jordan Eberle’s famed first NHL snipe

Marian Hossa’s breakaway tally on former team

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The Author:

John Matisz