NHL Average Goals per Game between 1917/18 - 2009/10

Average number of goals scored in an NHL game has gone through ups and downs during NHL history. The charts below show a time series on the Goals per Game measure (How was this calculated?) for all skaters as well as forwards and defensemen separately. Chart data can be found on a separate page.

In the charts, the 1980s clearly stand out as a high scoring era. After mid 1990s the game has entered a low scoring era that was last seen during the 1950s. The number of goals has been consistently slightly higher during the regular season than in the playoffs.

The final chart shows the ratio between the goals scored by forwards and defense. This ratio has been remarkably stable since the mid 1980s suggesting that the role of the defense in creating offense has changed little over last 20-30 years. Since mid 1980s, forwards have scored roughly six times as many goals as the defense or, put another way, defense has scored roughly 17% of the goals in NHL.

Goals per game is calculated simply by dividing the total number of goals scored during the season by the total number of games played during that same season. Number of goals is calculated from individual player statistics, which means that tie breaking shootout goals are not included in the total.