Short-handed - Short-handed Goals

Short-handed Goals

A short-handed goal is a goal scored in ice hockey when a team's on-ice players are outnumbered by the opposing team's. Normally, a team would be outnumbered because of a penalty incurred. However, the opposing team on the power play often only has one defenceman at the rear rather than the typical two, in favor of adding another attacker. This strategy can often be exploited by the short-handed team, if they do manage to get the puck out into the neutral zone leaving most of the opposing players behind, and the penalty killers may enjoy odd man rushes and breakaways against the single defenceman of the advantaged team.

When one team pulls its goalie near the end of a game to play with an extra attacker, any goal scored on the empty net is not considered to be short-handed (because there are equal numbers of players on ice for the teams).

Short-handed goals are somewhat infrequent when a team is down one player, and some instances have occurred where two short-handed goals have been scored on the same penalty. Very rarely is a short-handed goal scored by a team that is down two players. Former Philadelphia Flyers captain Mike Richards is the only player in the history of the NHL to score three career 3-on-5 goals, having attained the last one during the 2008-09 NHL Season. The quickest trio of short-handed goals ever scored in a National Hockey League game occurred on April 10, 2010 during a game at the TD Garden between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes, when the Bruins scored three short-handed goals against Carolina goaltender Cam Ward in only 1:04 of game time, during a minor hooking penalty to Bruins defenseman Matt Hunwick. The Boston Bruins also made NHL history for those short-handed goals, as it was the first time the same shift has scored three times on a single penalty kill (Daniel Paille, Blake Wheeler, Steve Begin). The most short-handed goals ever scored in one NHL game by one team occurred on April 7, 1995, when the Winnipeg Jets scored four, the most since the end of the era of the Original Six teams of the NHL.