from Sonny Sachdeva of Sportsnet,

Few aspects of the game seem as synonymous with NHL hockey as the slapshot, the clappers from the point that filled nets ruthlessly throughout the league’s foundational decades. But as the sport continues to get faster and the space once offered to shooters dries up, the slapshot is becoming a relic of the past.

The occasional howitzer still pops up in games here and there, with some veteran defenders hanging onto the slapshot dream, and some circumstances still allowing it to be effective. But by and large, the way the game is currently played often makes loading up a slapshot simply too cumbersome to be as effective as other options.

Dallas Stars defender John Klingberg offered his perspective on the decline of the technique’s presence during a recent conversation with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek 31 Thoughts: The Podcast, shedding light on his thinking process when launching shots from the blue line in today’s NHL.

“You want to shoot the puck as hard as you can, but it’s tough nowadays to have time enough to shoot slapshots,” Klingberg told Friedman and Marek. “You want to have a quick and good release with your wrist shot. Nowadays, everyone is so good at tipping too, it doesn’t really matter if it’s going higher or lower. I’m just trying to score from there, too. And we have a lot of good guys who can tip pucks as well in Dallas, so for me, I’m just trying to get the puck through and score a goal.”

continued, includes a chart to prove the point...