How many times did it happen last season? The Dallas Stars had just scored and you were still entering celebratory banter on your keyboard in the DBD game thread, and then the other team immediately scores and gets it back before you're even sure who had the secondary assist. Groan. An afternoon game against the Los Angeles Kings and a critical lost point comes to mind.
Matthew Brigidi at The Checking Line decided to find out for every team in the league and conducted a meticulous search of NHL play by plays, providing the blogosphere with rankings and providing us with some more detailed numbers for the Stars.
This is a curiosity only; a pretty meaningless stat, but it caught my eye just the same and I thought it was worth a little look. The Stars surrendered the 8th most "quick strike goals against" in the league while ranking 20th in handing them out.
Matt defines a "quick strike goal" as such in his post:
For the purposes of this study, a quick-strike goal is defined by three separate characteristics:
1. Any goal scored within the first 1:30 of any regulation period
2. Any goal scored within 2:30 of a ‘goal for’ (labeled as ‘Consecutive’)
3. Any goal scored within 2:30 of a ‘goal against’ (labeled as ‘Retaliation’)
As you might guess, the Stars were considerably worse off on the quick strike goals they allowed versus the ones they scored on other teams.
| Quick Strike Goals Against | # | Rank |
| Consecutive QSG Against: | 23 | 4th |
| QSG Against - First 90 sec of period: | 13 | 15th |
| Retaliation Goals Against: | 20 | 8th |
Meaning that 23 times last year, the Stars opponent scored goals no further than 2:30 apart, good enough for the 4th most in the entire NHL. It goes without saying that two quick goals against will significantly damage ones chances of winning a hockey game darned near every time. How many of those 23 games did they lose? That's a question we may answer as August rolls on, if the insufferable heat doesn't cause rolling blackouts, that is.
What many will remember more than the consecutive goals is the retaliation goals. It happened 20 times. 2:30 is a long time and it includes the next 4 shifts or so. It would be even more interesting to see how the Stars ranked in the league at allowing retaliatory goals on the very next shift. Perhaps we'll do that as well.
| Quick Strike Goals For | # | Rank |
| Consecutive QSG For: | 16 | 19th |
| QSG For - First 90 sec of period: | 11 | 24th |
| Retaliation Goals For: | 18 | 14th |
On the "for" side Dallas didn't do any above average damage. They scored two quick goals 16 times and only punched back expeditiously after a goal against 18 times, good for 14th in the league. Failing to retaliate in a timely manner isn't anything to fret about, of course. It's the quick strike retaliations that drive coaches and fans mad. There's nothing more defeating than a goal against while Bill Oellermann is announcing a Stars goal. It rather sucks the life force out of the place.
It's not exactly a stat of significance and there's only the loosest of correlations between something like this and what a playoff team should be, but certainly not causation. In any case it's a fun study and we thank Mr. Brigidi for supplying us with his detailed findings. You can follow him on twitter at @@mattbrigidi.