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When I looked at Taylor Hall's shot rates yesterday, one of the first questions I received was "now what?" This isn't a scientific study, or an attempt at predicting Hall's shot rates over the next three years, but rather an exercise in examining what happened to his peer group.
Below is a table that shows games played, shots and shots per game data for all forwards since 1967-681 in their first three seasons who were also under the age of 21, minimum of 150 games played2. The table also shows shots per game data for their next three seasons, as well as the percent change in the following three seasons.
| Player | GP | S | S/GP | S/GP Next 3 | Δ |
| Alex Ovechkin | 163 | 817 | 5.01 | 5.76 | 14.96% |
| Wayne Gretzky | 239 | 914 | 3.82 | 4.40 | 15.23% |
| Dale Hawerchuk | 239 | 892 | 3.73 | 3.58 | -3.93% |
| Danny Gare | 157 | 577 | 3.68 | 3.01 | -18.21% |
| Marcel Dionne | 155 | 550 | 3.55 | 4.22 | 18.82% |
| Mike Gartner | 157 | 554 | 3.53 | 3.67 | 3.95% |
| Mario Lemieux | 215 | 752 | 3.5 | 4.63 | 32.21% |
| Ilya Kovalchuk | 227 | 782 | 3.44 | 3.94 | 14.58% |
| Sidney Crosby | 213 | 701 | 3.29 | 3.50 | 6.46% |
| Pierre Larouche | 220 | 718 | 3.26 | 2.43 | -25.35% |
| Jason Arnott | 184 | 594 | 3.23 | 3.07 | -5.07% |
| Evgeni Malkin | 160 | 514 | 3.21 | 3.85 | 20.07% |
| Taylor Hall | 171 | 547 | 3.2 | ? | ? |
| Dennis Maruk | 160 | 501 | 3.13 | 2.51 | -19.71% |
| Jeff Skinner | 188 | 584 | 3.11 | ? | ? |
| Sylvain Turgeon | 216 | 671 | 3.11 | 3.29 | 5.65% |
| Wilf Paiement | 213 | 660 | 3.1 | 3.47 | 11.88% |
| Steven Stamkos3 | 243 | 750 | 3.09 | 3.54 | 14.51% |
| Evander Kane4 | 213 | 648 | 3.04 | 3.96 | 30.21% |
| Eric Lindros | 172 | 521 | 3.03 | 3.69 | 21.83% |
| Jimmy Carson | 240 | 719 | 3 | 2.41 | -19.62% |
| Marian Gaborik | 230 | 680 | 2.96 | 3.75 | 26.78% |
| John Tavares4 | 243 | 715 | 2.94 | 3.38 | 14.80% |
| Michel Goulet | 233 | 683 | 2.93 | 3.35 | 14.27% |
| Patrice Bergeron | 229 | 667 | 2.91 | 2.47 | -15.14% |
| Wendel Clark | 174 | 503 | 2.89 | 2.55 | -11.71% |
| Patrick Kane | 244 | 706 | 2.89 | 3.00 | 3.98% |
| Bob Carpenter | 240 | 688 | 2.87 | 2.62 | -8.77% |
1The NHL did not start recording player shots data until 1967-68
2all data sourced from Hockey Reference, using their February 1 cut-off for birthdates.
3player has played 2 seasons in "next 3" period
4player has played 1 season in "next 3" period
The "next 3" results are all over the place, however, the players who suffered a drop in shot rates have one of two things in common, injuries or trades. Except for Dale Hawerchuk, each of those players that saw a dip in their shot rates either suffered an injury in their 22-24 years or were traded to another team. Whether performance drops caused the trades or the other way around I won't dig into because we can make the assumption that Hall won't be traded to another team. We certainly can't account for injuries, but the players who stayed in place saw an average of a 14% increase in shots per game.