What is Per 60 minutes?

A way to measure how much a player produces per hour of ice time, so you can fairly compare players who play different amounts.

What this tells us

When a player plays 10 minutes one night and 20 minutes the next, their raw totals look different even if they're playing at the same pace. Per-60 removes that noise by scaling everything to a full hour. A player with 1.5 goals per 60 means: if he played 60 minutes straight, you'd expect him to score about 1.5 goals at that rate. It lets you compare a star forward who plays 20 minutes a night to a depth player who plays 10 minutes — apples to apples.

Limitations

Per-60 assumes a player's rate stays constant across all contexts — ice time, linemates, opponent strength, score effects. A fourth-liner might post great per-60 numbers on a blowout win when he's only facing weak competition. That's why context matters: a 1.5 goals-per-60 rookie on a rebuilding team isn't the same as a 1.5 goals-per-60 star playing meaningful minutes in tight games. Also, small sample sizes are dangerous — a player with 30 minutes of ice time will have noise in his per-60 that a player with 600 minutes won't.

Example

A top-line forward might average 3.5 shots per 60 minutes over a season. A backup defenseman on the same team might also average 3.5 shots per 60, but he's only on the ice for 12 minutes a game, while the forward plays 20. Per-60 makes that comparison fair.