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The first of Tomas Plekanec’s 15 seasons in the NHL came in 2005-06, which coincided with the league’s introduction of a shootout. The shootout was not kind to Plekanec. Among all NHL players with at least 20 attempts, Plekanec’s career shootout percentage of 13% is the lowest league history. A deeper look into Plekanec’s shootout usage reveals an interesting pattern: Seasons # Years Plekanec Shootout Attempts 2005-06 to 2014-15 10 23 2015-16 to 2018-19 5 0 Each of Plekanec’s shootout attempts occured in his first 10 seasons, and his success rate was so bad in that timeframe that he never again got an opportunity.

How do you estimate outcomes under a set of rules that don’t (yet) exist? In this post, I’ll walk through how the NFL league office used resampling to estimate metrics related to an offseason proposal related to overtime. Background Back in March, the NFL’s competition committee and owners debated the merits of a rule change, proposed by Kansas City, that would allow both teams the opportunity to possess the ball at least one time in overtime.