Anaheim Ducks right winger Troy Terry delivered his first two hits of the season on Sunday. As it turns out, there are more high-scoring NHL players who avoid bodychecking.
It's one of those rare stats that doesn't make much sense.
Through 58 games this season, Troy Terry had not delivered a single bodycheck.
In a league that defines a hit as using your body to either stop the progress of a puck carrier or separate the carrier from the puck, this is no small feat.
Not once did Terry bump or shove or impede an opponent. For most of the season, the Anaheim Ducks right winger barely got close enough to even breathe on one.
That, of course, changed on Sunday night.
It took six months, but Terry finally recorded his first bodycheck in what was Anaheim's 80th game of the season.
Chasing down a loose puck in the offensive zone, the Terry kinda-sorta bumped into Marcus Pettersson as the Vancouver Canucks defenseman backhanded an outlet pass.
Perhaps emboldened by his newfound physicality, Terry then picked up his second hit of the season in the second period, when he brushed up against Kirill Kudryavtsev on another forecheck.
As one fan jokingly asked, "I assume both players are out of the game with serious injuries?"
Indeed, Terry's no-hit streak was not exactly a badge of honor in a sport that is supposed to be physical.
Instead, it brings up questions of whether the six-foot, 193-pound Terry is more soft than stealthy.
After all, hockey is a physical sport. Finishing checks is something kids are taught from an early age.
So how is it that Terry nearly went an entire season without even accidentally bumping into another player? How is it that across 486 NHL games, Terry has totalled just 56 hits — about one every nine games?
Well, the answer is that the NHL is not the same NHL that Don Cherry used to glorify in his popular VHS videos.
The days of Rock'Em Sock'Em hockey are starting to go the way of the heavyweight enforcer.
There's still a place for big hitters and momentum-changing hits, as the Minnesota Wild's Yakov Trenin has shown with a league-leading 407 hits.
But if you look at the league's top players, you'll notice that many of them don't really hit that much.
Jack Hughes has four hits this season. Quinn Hughes has seven. Brayden Point and Clayton Keller each have eight. Robert Thomas has 10 hits. William Nylander, Artemi Panarin and Dylan Strome each have 11.
It took Terry until the end of the season to record a pair of hits. But Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore has also recorded just two hits this year — and he's played in nine more games.
Of the players who have appeared in at least 50 games, 49 of them have recorded 20 hits or fewer.
At the same time, it's not like these players are simply skating around trying to avoid contact at all costs.
At its core, a bodycheck is used to stop the progress of the puck or the puck carrier. But instead of delivering a bodycheck, which can put the attacking player out of position — especially if he misses his target — more and more players are employing stick checks to help turnover pucks.
Ryan O'Reilly, who has just 15 hits, leads all forwards with 48 takeaways. John Carlson has 45 takeaways and 25 hits. Jack Hughes has 37 takeaways, while Quinn Hughes has 34.
Terry, who only had seven hits last season, is probably never going to be known for his bodychecks. But over 486 career games, he is averaging 1.64 takeaways per 60 minutes.
In fact, Terry has as many takeaways this season (24) as NHL top-hitter Trenin does. And he's done so by delivering 405 fewer hits.
Terry also has 18 goals and 56 points, as well as a plus-11 rating that is the best on his team. Trenin has six goals and 22 points.
Then again, with two hits in his last game, maybe Terry's been saving himself for the upcoming physical grind of the playoffs.
If so, opponents might want to keep their heads up.
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