Zero hits, zero power-play goals, zero penalties taken. Discover this season's most astonishing fantasy hockey anomalies and their fantasy impact.
Troy Terry has zero hits
With 54 hits through 472 career games, the physical part has never been Terry’s calling card, but you’d think he could register one hit even by accident or with thanks to a generous home-team scorekeeper. Despite having one the best statistical seasons of his career, Terry’s lack of hits decreases his overall fantasy value in multi-category leagues.
Terry, however, doesn’t claim the title for the least physical player in the league. That honor goes to Tyler Arnason, who has the lowest hits/60 average (0.27 vs. Terry’s 0.39, min. 250 GP) in the cap era, though Terry, of course, is the far superior player.
Jack Eichel has zero power-play goals
Eichel ranks 23rd in total power-play points (23) and all of them are assists. For a player who averages over three shots per game and ranks third on the team in goals (21), it is inconceivable Eichel has yet to light the lamp in an era where scoring on the power play has spiked. He’s 0-for-36 when converting shots on the power play while six of the nine players on the Knights with at least one power-play goal are shooting above 20 percent.
This ignominious cold spell won’t last, but note this has been multi-year trend where Eichel is more of a playmaker than a shooter on the Vegas power play. He scored only five PPG in his first 100 games with Vegas, and only five in 77 games last season. In fantasy leagues that weigh goals more heavily, Eichel unfortunately needs to be discounted even when Vegas has a strong power play.
Jack Hughes has not taken a single penalty
A finalist for the Lady Byng in 2022-23, Hughes has yet to be called for a single penalty this season. No errant stick infraction, no retaliations, no accidental puck-over-the-glass, nothing. Of the players who have played at least half their team’s games with substantial minutes, Hughes is the only player to have yet sit in the box.
Funny enough, Hughes also didn’t take a single penalty in the 2021-22 season when he finished seventh in Lady Byng voting. Should Hughes avoid taking a penalty this season, he would join Leafs legend Kyle Wellwood as the only players to have zero penalty minutes in multiple seasons in the cap era.
Mason Appleton has zero takeaways
Only very niche leagues count giveaways and takeaways – sign me up if you have space – but it’s a baffling stat especially when you consider Appleton has featured quite regularly on the penalty kill throughout his career.
Only five players (!) in the cap era have ever played at least 40 games and failed to strip an opponent of a puck; three of them were pugilists who never touched the puck anyway (Raitis Ivanans, David Koci and Derek Boogaard) and the other is a defenseman who can barely handle a puck (Erik Gudbranson).
Connor Hellebuyck has zero shutouts
It’s not unusual for goalies to go an entire season without a shutout, and if you watch the Jets play it’s not always on Hellebuyck. But it is very, very rare for the league leader in shutouts to not shut out a single opponent the following season.
This has only happened once in the cap era when Braden Holtby led the league with nine shutouts in 2016-17 – the final season of a dominant three-year stretch – and failed to shut out a single opponent the next season.
Jonathan Quick came close (10 shutouts in 2011-12 and a Conn Smythe, and only one shutout in the subsequent season), as did Jacob Markstrom (nine shutouts in 2021-22 and only one the season after), who also almost broke Pokey Reddick’s infamous record for going 132 games without a shutout.
I’m in the camp that shutouts is basically a team stat – not unlike wins for pitchers in baseball – and it’s a terrible category to play in fantasy hockey, but this again just shows that goaltending can be voodoo.
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