Earlier this week Behind the Net did a feature on posts hit leaders (crossbar and posts) in the league, with Steven Stamkos leading the way at 16. Two Dallas Stars were among the league leaders. Check out the post here.
One you can surely guess, for they included shootout data in their numbers: James Neal. He hit 8 pipes this year. The other you might not get immediately, but it makes sense: Brad Richards. He was the Stars best play and took the most shots on the team by an extremely wide margin. He hit 10 posts.
Posts aren't a good indicator anything in particular. Bad luck, maybe. The only thing they even remotely point to for my money is shots taken. Brad Richards led the team because he took the most shots.
Nevertheless I saw their names on the list and got curious about the rest of the gang, so I ran 82 to play by plays through a program I wrote to discover the Stars hit 54 posts this season. Call it off-season boredom. This is a pointless stat, but it leads me to a longer post on "misses" that I hope to have ready in the coming weeks.
For now, see the breakdown on posts hit and the player who recorded a hit post from 90 feet this year...
I included shootout numbers in my (posts hit) data as well because quite frankly, it was easier that way.
| Shooter | Posts Hit | Goals | Shots |
| Richards | 10 | 24 | 284 |
| Neal | 8 | 27 | 200 |
| Ribeiro | 4 | 19 | 155 |
| Robidas | 4 | 10 | 199 |
| Ott | 4 | 27 | 146 |
| Daley | 4 | 6 | 107 |
| Morrow | 3 | 20 | 155 |
| Benn | 3 | 22 | 182 |
| Grossman | 3 | 0 | 58 |
| Modano | 3 | 14 | 115 |
| Eriksson | 2 | 29 | 214 |
| Lehtinen | 2 | 4 | 87 |
| Niskanen | 1 | 3 | 110 |
| Wandell | 1 | 5 | 85 |
| Skrastins | 1 | 2 | 53 |
| Fistric | 1 | 1 | 46 |
A couple of things here: We need to get Nick Grossman a goal. It's not like he's going to see any power play time, but he's a big body capable of whacking a puck pretty hard from the point. Visit Behind the Net for a different take on shot totals. They have Richards in the 400's, which I assume factors in total shots directed at the net (on goal, or misses) which is what I hope to delve into for the entire team soon. This little exercise collected that data for me at least.
Steve Ott was credited with the teams "longest" post hit, on a shot from 90 feet, and he was also credited with the closest post hit, at 9 feet. That the closest was 9 feet is (mildly) interesting because Behind the Net found that league wide, the largest percentage of posts were hit on shots from well under 10 feet, which doesn't say much for accuracy.
Don't hit too many proverbial crossbars at work today.