When you look at the best guys in the league at the shootout, they all have three or four really good moves, but they all start out exactly the same way. Look at T.J. Oshie. He’ll pick the puck up and take a similar route toward the net every time. He’ll stick handle it in a similar way every time. And then when he gets to a certain spot, he has four moves that branch off from there. You don’t really know what he’s going to do until he does it. So it forces the goalie to make a reactionary save, which is much more difficult.
Game theory: Rethinking the shootout, and the value of a one-trick pony
