What the Shot Chart Tells You That the Score Doesn't
The final score tells you who won. The shot chart tells you why — and what to fix before the next game.
Two Teams, Same Score, Very Different Stories
Imagine two teams that each lose 3-1. Team A took 28 shots — 18 of them from the slot and circles, 6 from right in front. They were dangerous and unlucky. Team B took 22 shots — 17 from the perimeter, outside the dots, low-danger all night. They were outplayed and fortunate to only lose by two.
The scoresheet says the same thing. The shot chart says something completely different.
What Shot Location Actually Means
Not all shots are equal. Where a shot comes from is as important as whether it's on net. The three zones that matter most:
🟢 High Danger — The Slot & In Front
Shots from directly in front of the net and the centre of the slot. Goalies have the least time and angle to work with. These convert at the highest rate. If your team is generating shots here, you're doing something right even if they're not going in.
🟡 Medium Danger — The Circles & Flanks
Shots from the face-off circles and the half-wall. Still dangerous with traffic or on a one-timer off a cross-ice pass. These are the shots that reward good power play execution.
🔴 Low Danger — The Perimeter
Point shots and shots from outside the circles with no traffic. Rarely go in off the shot alone — they're valuable as deflection opportunities, but a team that mostly shoots from here isn't generating real offence.
Reading the Chart at Intermission
When you get the shot report between periods, here's what to look for first:
- Where are our shots clustering? If everything is on the perimeter, you're not getting to the hard areas. The fix is usually a net-front presence conversation.
- Where are their shots coming from? If the opponent is generating from the slot, your defensive zone coverage is breaking down in front of your own goalie.
- Who is generating from good areas? If one player has three slot attempts and nothing is going in, keep putting them in those situations — the puck will eventually find the net.
The Coaching Conversation It Enables
"We need to shoot more" is a vague instruction. "We took 14 shots in the first period and 11 were from outside the dots — let's talk about how we get to the dirty areas" is a coaching moment. The shot chart is what turns general feedback into specific direction.
Coaches at every level already think this way — they watch for it with their eyes. BackCheckLabs just puts the data on paper so the conversation can happen in two minutes instead of twenty.
Shot Charts in BackCheckLabs
Every time you log a shot in BackCheckLabs, you tap the location on the ice. The app builds a shot location report for the game in real time — shareable at intermission and available as part of the full season report.