At shootouts, Henrik Zetterberg is thrust into a position he’s not ready for. Zetterberg’s game isn’t flashy. He doesn’t have a particularly hard shot. He usually makes the pass that leads to the ridiculous dangles rather than pull them himself.
Yet, when the shootout goes into extra attempts, Zetterberg is one of the first men off the bench. As you can probably guess, things don’t go so well.
The Basics: Zetterberg is 13-for-49 in shootouts.
Goals: 1/28/06 @ Dallas (Marty Turco), 3/18/06 @ Edmonton (Dwayne Roloson), 1/9/07 @ Colorado (Peter Budaj), 11/7/07 vs. Nashville (Chris Mason), 12/17/07 vs. Washington (Olaf Kolzig), 1/17/08 vs. Vancouver (Roberto Luongo), 10/27/08 @ Los Angeles (Jason LaBarbera), 12/13/08 @ Phoenix (Ilya Bryzgalov), 2/15/09 vs. Colorado (Andrew Raycroft), 11/5/09 vs. San Jose (Evgeni Nabokov), 11/21/09 @ Montreal (Carey Price), 1/12/12 @ Phoenix (Mike Smith), 4/12/13 @ Chicago (Corey Crawford)
Misses: 3/21/06 vs. Nashville (Tomas Vokoun), 3/25/06 vs. Columbus (Pascal Leclaire), 10/13/06 vs. Buffalo (Ryan Miller), 11/18/06 @ Edmonton (Dwayne Roloson), 2/23/07 vs. Edmonton (Dwayne Roloson), 10/3/07 vs. Anaheim (Ilya Bryzgalov), 10/6/07 @ Chicago (Nikolai Khabibulin), 11/18/07 @ Columbus (Pascal Leclaire), 11/24/07 @ Columbus (Pascal Leclaire), 12/13/07 vs. Edmonton (Dwayne Roloson), 1/10/08 vs. Minnesota (Josh Harding), 2/26/08 @ Edmonton (Mathieu Garon), 10/25/08 @ Chicago (Nikolai Khabibulin), 12/6/08 vs. Chicago (Cristobal Huet), 12/27/08 @ Colorado (Peter Budaj), 1/3/09 @ Minnesota (Josh Harding), 3/12/09 vs. Calgary (Miikka Kiprusoff), 10/17/09 vs. Colorado (Craig Anderson), 10/29/09 @ Edmonton (Nikolai Khabibulin), 4/9/09 vs. Nashville (Pekka Rinne), 11/28/09 @ St. Louis (Chris Mason), 12/5/09 @ New Jersey (Martin Brodeur), 1/16/10 @ Dallas (Alex Auld), 1/17/10 vs. Chicago (Antti Niemi), 1/21/10 @ Minnesota (Niklas Backstrom), 2/9/10 @ St. Louis (Chris Mason), 3/27/10 @ Nashville (Pekka Rinne), 10/12/10 vs. Colorado (Peter Budaj), 1/7/11 @ Calgary (Miika Kiprusoff), 1/14/11 @ Columbus (Steve Mason), 2/4/12 @ Edmonton (Devan Dubnyk), 2/23/12 vs. Vancouver (Roberto Luongo), 1/21/13 @ Columbus (Sergei Bobrovsky), 3/3/13 vs. Chicago (Corey Crawford), 3/10/13 vs. Columbus (Sergei Bobrovsky), 4/20/13 @ Vancouver (Cory Schneider)
Zetterberg shootout chart. (Black = goal. Red = Miss.) **This attempt came on 1/28/06 @ Dallas. Zetterberg lost the puck, but referees ruled that Marty Turco had thrown his stick and crediting Zetterberg with a goal.
The Strategy: Zetterberg is like that kid with ADHD who has a high-sugar lunch and comes into the next class trying to become the teacher’s pet. He can’t just do the assignment. He’s got to go above and beyond and completely manipulate the thing to where you don’t even understand what’s going on. At times, it’s amazingly successful. Other times, most of the time, it fails spectacularly. Either way, it’s entertaining to watch.
Zetterberg dekes about 80 percent of the time, but unlike Datsyuk, he doesn’t have a set move. It’s more of an outline, that ends up in the same place. He almost exclusively shoots low and favors the left side. As for how he gets there, I’m pretty sure he just plays a video game before the game and takes whatever moves are in the game. This is Zetterberg’s maximum effectiveness: the famous, Forsberg/Sweden! move.
He’s tried that move a handful of times over the years and had varying amounts of successs.
This is Zetterberg’s minimum effectiveness. Most of the time he’s closer to that than the Sweden! attempt.
The Takeaway: From an entertainment standpoint, Zetterberg is great. From an efficiency standpoint, Zetteberg isn’t so great. Goalies that are good side-to-side (like Dubnyk) and don’t over commit should be able to play him pretty well. The pokecheck is quite a weapon against Zetterberg and it’s bitten him multiple times. Mistime it though, and a goalie is will get embarrassed. Other than that, just kind of sit there, soak it all in, and overplay him shooting to his left side.
Shootout Deadliness: On entertainment alone Zetterberg is a 4 out of 5, but overall, he earns just 1 ”OHHH BA-BY” out of 5.
