{"id":101061,"date":"2025-06-30T05:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T05:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/101061\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T05:33:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T05:33:20","slug":"why-do-hockey-teams-pull-the-goalie-and-how-often-does-it-actually-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/101061\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do hockey teams pull the goalie \u2014 and how often does it actually work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holding the defending Stanley Cup champions<\/a> to two goals is an impressive feat from a rebuilding team.<\/p>\n

But the Utah Hockey Club achieved it, at least for the first 58 minutes of the hourlong game when they hosted the Florida Panthers on Jan. 8.<\/p>\n

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With 2:05 left on the clock, Panthers forward Jesper Boqvist gained control of the puck deep in his own zone and sent the puck gently down the ice.<\/p>\n

Had there been a goaltender, well, tending the goal, it would have been such an easy save that wouldn\u2019t have even counted as a shot on net. But because nobody was home, the puck glided carelessly into the yawning cage, extending the Panthers\u2019 lead to 3-1.<\/p>\n

A minute and a half later, Eetu Luostarinen found himself on a breakaway with an empty net to shoot at. It\u2019s the type of goal that a 5-year-old could have scored \u2014 he was 6 feet from the unattended net.<\/p>\n

The Panthers ended up winning 4-1, but the final score \u2014 which was the result of Utah pulling its goalie \u2014 failed to tell the story of an extremely tight game.<\/p>\n

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As the Utah-Florida game illustrates, pulling the goalie usually does more harm than good in hockey. But NHL experts still generally believe it\u2019s worth taking the risk. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Why do teams pull the goalie?<\/p>\n

When a team is down by a goal or two in the waning minutes of a game, the coach will usually summon the goalie to the bench and replace him with an extra forward.<\/p>\n

The rulebook says each team can have six players on the ice \u2014 it doesn\u2019t specify that the players have to be five skaters and a goalie.<\/p>\n

I know what you\u2019re going to ask: No, it doesn\u2019t work the other way around. You can\u2019t put two goalies on the ice at the same time.<\/p>\n

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Pulling the goalie gives the team an extra skater, which typically gives them more control of the puck. That occasionally leads to a game-tying goal.<\/p>\n

The downside of the move is that the other team no longer needs to worry about a goalie. If one of its players can accurately aim for the unguarded net, the team will score, so pulling the goalie often leads to an even bigger deficit.<\/p>\n

The rationale is that a regulation loss counts for zero points in the standings whether the score is 2-1 or 10-0, so there\u2019s nothing to lose by pulling the goalie.<\/p>\n

Another instance in which a team pulls its goalie is when the opposing team is getting a penalty. The referee only stops the play when the penalized team gains control of the puck, so the advantaged team can play (almost) risk-free with an extra attacker.<\/p>\n

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Of course, Utah Hockey Club fans know that if you accidentally put it in your own net, it\u2019s on you.<\/p>\n

How often does pulling the goalie actually work?<\/p>\n

According to the crew at \u201c32 Thoughts: The Podcast,\u201d who discussed this topic on Friday<\/a>, there were 34 instances in the 2023-24 season where a team tied the game in the last three minutes of a period while using an extra attacker and went on to win the game.<\/p>\n

There are 1,312 regular season games in an NHL season, so that means a successful goalie pull changed the outcome of about 2.6% of last season\u2019s games.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s not to say it only works 2.6% of the time, because goalies were not pulled in all 1,312 games.<\/p>\n

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All told, there were 446 empty-net goals scored last season.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the math, fans remember when their team pulls off a miraculous comeback. Check out this example of the Vancouver Canucks coming back at the last minute to win a playoff game last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Holding the defending Stanley Cup champions to two goals is an impressive feat from a rebuilding team. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[144,2663,249,4284,5,253,1036,4,63,130,51,5290,232,5291,5289,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-101061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-hockey-club","8":"tag-colorado-avalanche","9":"tag-connor-ingram","10":"tag-eetu-luostarinen","11":"tag-goalie","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-jesper-boqvist","14":"tag-joel-kiviranta","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-panthers","17":"tag-team","18":"tag-utah","19":"tag-utah-hc","20":"tag-utah-hockey-club","21":"tag-utahhc","22":"tag-utahhockeyclub","23":"tag-vancouver-canucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114770687368962175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}