What is Goal Share?

The share of all goals scored that go to your team versus the opponent while this player is on the ice.

What this tells us

When this player is on the ice at full strength, what percentage of all the goals (his team's plus the opponents') does his team score? A 55% goal share means his team scored 55% of the goals while he was playing. It's the simplest scoreboard-level read on whether his line is winning or losing the actual game on the ice.

Limitations

Goal share swings hard with goaltending, shooting luck, and small sample sizes. A player with a great goal share might have benefited from a hot goalie on his team; another with a poor goal share might be controlling play but losing 1–0 games. That's why we also show xGF% (expected goal share), which weights chances by quality and isn't subject to short-term shooting variance.

Example

A top-line forward typically posts a goal share between 53% and 58%. A bottom-six player on a struggling team might be at 47–50%, even if his underlying play is fine.