Along with those who bang on the glass in the front row, lean forward in the upper bowl, or stand up in the middle of the crowd to wave at the camera, those fans who spend the entirety of a night yelling “SHOOOOOT!” at everyone who happens to possess the puck for even a fraction of a second are among the most annoying patrons at any given NHL game.

Most find it especially annoying that said fans seem to believe that it is they, and not the professional hockey players and their professional coaches, who know when is best to shoot the puck. There’s some real arrogance in shouting “SHOOT.” There’s also plenty of ignorance.

Except, perhaps…in the case of the 2024/25 Vancouver Canucks.

With this team, yelling “SHOOT” constantly is actually pretty good advice. It seems to be what they most need to hear, and if they’re not going to say it to themselves, well, then somebody’s got to shout it.

The Canucks’ low shot totals have been a talking point all season long, but it’s an issue that has really exacerbated itself as of late. As of this writing, the Canucks have slipped down to second-last place in the NHL in shots-per-60 with 25.2, just barely ahead of the Chicago Blackhawks at 25.1.

All of the other teams down at the bottom of the shots-per-game column are currently outside of the playoff picture. The Blackhawks, the Red Wings, the Canadiens, the Kraken, the Sabres, the Sharks. The Canucks stand out from the pack as the only team still making a concerted effort at making the postseason while posting such a minimal amount of shots.

We’re certainly not the only ones pointing this out. Head coach Rick Tocchet expressed as much after the team’s 2-0 shutout loss to Carolina on Friday, telling reporters he was “a little frustrated with the overpassing and not hitting the net.”

Now, the “overpassing” bit is pretty bang on. But the piece about the Canucks not hitting the net? That’s not quite how we would phrase the problem because it would imply that the Canucks’ biggest issue is having their shots miss or be blocked. It’s not.

Their biggest issue is not taking those shot attempts in the first place.

The Canucks don’t actually have a problem hitting the net. Thus far on the 2024/25 season, they’ve missed the net 549 times, according to NHL.com. And that might sound like a lot, but it’s also the seventh-lowest amount in the league. In other words, the Canucks are one of the teams that misses the net the least this year.

If we’re measuring by shot attempts, the proof is really in the pudding. The Canucks also rank second-last, ahead of Chicago, in shot attempts with just 1806 thus far. They also rank second-last in unblocked shot attempts at 1256 thus far.

So, the amount of shots missed or block is not the major factor here. It’s the amount of times they try to shoot in the first place, period.

Saturday’s 3-0 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs was nice and cathartic, but it was also definitely achieved in spite of this ongoing issue. The 18 shots the Canucks sent all the way to Dennis Hildeby was their fourth-lowest shot total of the year. They were just fortunate to score on a full 1/6^th of their shots on this particular night.

On this night, the Canucks attempted 41 shots. Of those, about 15 were blocked, eight more missed the net, and 18 made it to Hildeby. Percentage-wise, that’s not a bad result.

Simply put, the Canucks need to shoot more if they want to be able to score more. Put even more simply, that person yelling “SHOOT!” all the time now actually has a point.

There are a few possible reasons behind this phenomenon.

On the more positive side of things, the Canucks do appear to pay some attention to shot selection. Their team shooting percentage is at 11.6% right now, good for fourth-highest in the league. That’s not quite high enough to draw talk of PDO, but it is high enough to say that the Canucks must clearly make some attempts toward quality over quantity when it comes to their shots.

A more negative read might be one of opportunity. However many shots and shot attempts the Canucks are taking themselves, they tend to allow their opponents to take more. The Canucks have a 49.0% control of the shot attempts on the season so far, and while that’s a fairly middle of the road result, it’s also compounded by the Canucks’ overall lack of shot attempts.

This lack of control is obviously quite greatly exacerbated by any point at which Quinn Hughes is not on the ice, as are all possession-related results.

We don’t think anyone in Vancouver is going to be upset at shutting out the Maple Leafs. And many will hold hope towards this big win sparking some sort of turnaround in the 2024/25 Canucks.

But it certainly wasn’t a turnaround when it came to taking more shots, and from where we’re sitting, it sure seems like taking more shots (and still maintaining or improving the percentage of them that make it to the net) is something the Canucks need to do if they want to be more competitive in the second-half of the season.

Or, in fewer words:

“SHOOOOOOOOT!”