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Every year there are a handful of players, and teams, that ride the percentages to unsustainably good results.
One player who did that this past season is New Jersey Devils forward Adam Henrique.
Following a somewhat disappointing campaign in 2014-15 where Henrique managed just 16 goals and shot 12.6%, a little below his career average at the time, Henrique bounced back in a big way last year with a 30-goal season.
The problem is he needed to score on 20.1% of his shots to reach said total. Even including last season's big spike that is almost 5% higher than his career average.
To put in perspective just how unsustainable Henrique's goal scoring was last season I looked at players who have accomplished comparable feats since 2010.
That, of course, being players who scored 20+ goals in a season while scoring on 20% or more of their shots.
Only five players have done so: Curtis Glencross, Sergei Kostitsyn, Alex Tanguay, Zack Smith and Henrique, with the latter two coming this past season.
There aren't many comparables to work with, obviously, but the results weren't kind to any of those players the year after scoring 20+ on 20%+.
In 2010-11 Kostitsyn scored 23 goals on 24.7% shooting. The following season he scored 17 goals on 17.5% shooting.
In 2011-12 Glencross scored 26 goals while shooting 23.6%. The following season he scored 15 goals on 16.3% shooting. He missed some time, which hurt his goal totals, but the only reason he avoided a larger dip is because his shots per game rate increased.
Tanguay scored 22 goals on 21.2% shooting in 2014-15. Last year he scored just eight goals and shot 11.3%.
Tanguay is probably an extreme example because a) Henrique has never shot below 12.3% and; b) Tanguay is an old player on the decline, but you get the point.
If Henrique's shot rate doesn't increase next season,
which I touched on the other day, it's safe to expect 5-10 fewer goals in 2016-17.
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