Six-hundred and sixty-one skaters have taken to the ice in this still-young NHL season. 335 of those players have scored goals, leaving the other 326 still finding their way into the goal column.
The list of players who haven’t scored is expansive. Many are players who have played in a game or two, while others are players who may play lots of minutes, but are shutdown defencemen taking few shots on goal, while there are the likes of talented players like Dylan Cozens, Carter Verhaeghe and Brad Marchand held goalless.
On the other hand, you have Zach Hyman, who, despite scoring a career-high 54 goals last season, still hasn’t found a way to tickle the twine. He, however, stands above the rest given his goal total from last season, and no goalless players have been as snakebitten as he is.
According to Natural Stat Trick, Hyman has generated 4.08 individual expected goals — a metric used to determine the quality of looks an individual player creates — in all situations this season while generating 33 individual scoring chances. By in large, this means that Hyman should have four goals on the season, yet hasn’t scored. The next closest player, for reference,
His inability to bury one this year has been noticeable. During Tuesday’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, there were multiple instances where if he held onto the puck for a second longer, he may have opened up a better lane to score. Instead, he’s rushed many of these quality look, resulting in opposing goaltenders being able to make saves.
Hyman isn’t the only Oilers skill player who hasn’t scored, as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Viktor Arvidsson have been held out of the goal column. Those two, however, haven’t been generating as many quality looks as Hyman, with Nugent-Hopkins accounting for 1.54 individual expected goals and 15 individual scoring chances. In comparison, Arvidsson has 1.42 individual expected goals and 17 individual scoring chances.
If Hyman’s shooting percentage was at his average over the last two years, he would already have scored two goals, while Nugent-Hopkins and Arvidsson would each have one. While that may not seem like much on the surface, they could’ve been positive determining factors in any of the Oilers’ first six games.
After Tuesday’s overtime loss to Carolina, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said his approach to talking with goalless players varies.
“They don’t need to be reminded they haven’t scored, but if there’s things we can help them with, whether it’s conversations we have had — just recently, a couple players about them doing the right things and just being very unfortunate,” he said. “There’s some players that need a reminder on how are they going to score.
“Are they needing to go to the net a little more, or be available in the slot, certain things like that. I think every player, depending on how they’re playing, gets different reminders, gets approached differently.”
Patience is a virtue in these early days, as all three of these players won’t maintain shooting percentages of zero throughout an entire 82-game schedule. It’s also why, as Oilers captain Connor McDavid alluded to Tuesday night, the team needs to keep working.
“I don’t see any other option than to keep plugging away,” he said. “Guys are getting chances, guys are getting looks they want. Eventually it’s gonna go. It’s just the law of averages.”
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
