Holding the defending Stanley Cup champions to two goals is an impressive feat from a rebuilding team.
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.
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.
Had there been a goaltender, well, tending the goal, it would have been such an easy save that wouldn’t have even counted as a shot on net. But because nobody was home, the puck glided carelessly into the yawning cage, extending the Panthers’ lead to 3-1.
A minute and a half later, Eetu Luostarinen found himself on a breakaway with an empty net to shoot at. It’s the type of goal that a 5-year-old could have scored — he was 6 feet from the unattended net.
The Panthers ended up winning 4-1, but the final score — which was the result of Utah pulling its goalie — failed to tell the story of an extremely tight game.
As the Utah-Florida game illustrates, pulling the goalie usually does more harm than good in hockey. But NHL experts still generally believe it’s worth taking the risk. Here’s why.
Why do teams pull the goalie?
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.
The rulebook says each team can have six players on the ice — it doesn’t specify that the players have to be five skaters and a goalie.
I know what you’re going to ask: No, it doesn’t work the other way around. You can’t put two goalies on the ice at the same time.
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.
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.
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’s nothing to lose by pulling the goalie.
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.
Of course, Utah Hockey Club fans know that if you accidentally put it in your own net, it’s on you.
How often does pulling the goalie actually work?
According to the crew at “32 Thoughts: The Podcast,” who discussed this topic on Friday, 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.
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’s games.
Of course, that’s not to say it only works 2.6% of the time, because goalies were not pulled in all 1,312 games.
All told, there were 446 empty-net goals scored last season.
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.