Everyone knows luck plays a big factor in team and individual success in the NHL, but it's not always easy to quantify the difference between lucky and good. Here are five players who stand out as having been uniquely lucky in 2025-26.
Call it "puck luck, the hockey gods," or "getting the bounces," but being lucky has an outsized impact on all kinds of things in hockey.
They also say you gotta be good to be lucky, which is probably true — but sometimes, there are players whose performance over the course of an entire season is so tinged with fortunate bounces going their way that they become tough to ignore. And even tougher to repeat.
With that in mind, let's run down some of the players who benefited the most from fortunate puck luck last season. Maybe that way, we can keep them in mind when picking fantasy rosters or making projections for the upcoming season.
All advanced stats are from Evolving Hockey and include all players with at least 500 total minutes of ice time.
5. Morgan Geekie, RW, Boston Bruins
In his third season with the Boston Bruins, Morgan Geekie set a career high in goals, assists, and total points with 39, 29 and 68, respectively.
A big part of his success is playing 60 percent of his minutes with David Pastrnak, who's one of the best players on earth, and playing 95 percent of his minutes in front of Jeremy Swayman, who's one of the best goalies in the league. But he went above and beyond all expectations this season.
He personally scored 39 goals on a little more than 26 expected, the biggest difference in the league (plus-12.73). Beyond that, 15 of his 29 helpers were secondary assists, which is hard to control for. His on-ice shooting percentage was 44th-highest in the league, which contributed to his career-high assist total, and his .893 on-ice save percentage was 49th.
Will he have another very good season next year? It's really possible. He put up similar numbers the year before, but given his age, the Bruins' general overperformance, and the fact that he beat his individual expected-goal total by almost 50 percent means a step back might be coming soon.
Unfortunately for the Bruins' chances this coming season, there are a lot of other guys on the team who would be in the running for a top-10 list.
4. Tyson Foerster, RW, Philadelphia Flyers
Tyson Foerster is a very good player who excelled in a depth role, albeit limited to 29 games. But everything about his season seems impossible to repeat.
For one thing, he scored 13 goals, which isn't a lot. But it stands out when the Philadelphia Flyers right winger only generated 7.3 expected goals and shot 21.3 percent.
But that's a minor issue next to the fact that his on-ice save percentage in front of Dan Vladar was .926, the 14th-highest in the league. Opponents were expected to score 22.4 goals - a modest total - when he was on the ice in all situations, and they scored just 14. He's a very good young forward, but it's hard to forecast him having the fifth-best GA/60 in all situations again next season.
3. Parker Kelly, C, Colorado Avalanche
Parker Kelly is another guy with big career numbers in 2025-26. The Colorado Avalanche center notched 21 goals versus a previous career high of eight and 35 points to nearly double his previous best of 19.
His 20.2 shooting percentage was more than double his career average of 8.5 percent. He was also a plus player for the first time in his career, going plus-18 compared to his previous high of minus-1.
Technically, he was supposed to set a career high in goals (13.1 expected), but eight of his assists were secondary. Also, he was on the ice for 45 Colorado goals and had 35 total points. Only 10 goals all season didn't in some way flow through him. You'd love to see him keep it up, but that's not realistic.
2. Darren Raddysh, D, Tampa Bay Lightning
A good chunk of Darren Raddysh's luck is as much down to circumstance as individual performance last season as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Victor Hedman's continuing decline and lack of availability led to the highest ice time and point totals of Raddysh's career by wide margins. Tampa basically needed someone to step up, and he jumped up.
That said, the same shouldn't be expected for this coming season with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He scored 22 on 13 expected, and the personnel on that Lightning power play were always going to put him in a great position to rack up his 48 assists.
To put it another way, Raddysh went from six goals in back-to-back seasons to 22, and the only other defensemen to score 20-plus back-to-back in the cap era are Brent Burns, Jakob Chychrun, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Erik Karlsson, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski.
1. Anthony Mantha, RW, Pittsburgh Penguins
There's a reason NHL front offices seemed cautious in signing one of the few 30-plus goalscorers on the market this summer.
Anthony Mantha came off a 13-game season in 2024-25 and, like Geekie, obliterated his career highs in goals (by eight), assists (by seven), and total points (by 16) with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
He did it by shooting 21.7 percent - though, as a somewhat selective shooter, he does that with some frequency - and having his linemates likewise shoot the lights out, with an on-ice shooting efficiency of 14.9 percent. Unlike Geekie, though, Mantha didn't play with all-world players: His most common linemates were Justin Brazeau and Tommy Novak.
He can still be a very good player with the New Jersey Devils, but he shouldn't be pencilled in for another 30 goals unless they let him hang out at the top of the lineup all year.
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