Every season, there’s a group of players the start the year on a ridiculous high pace of goals, and a faction of star players that are struck with unfortunate luck.
Nikita Kucherov leads the league in goals with 17 goals, while superstars John Tavares and Alex Ovechkin trail the Lightning winger with 15 and 13 goals, respectively.
While that trio of players are likely to sustain their high scoring outputs, players like Jason Zucker, who leads the Minnesota Wild with 11 goals in 20 games may see their goal production start to regress.
On the contrary, some players are just simply unlucky and can’t seem to get of the shcneid to open the season. Luck plays a massive role in hockey, and some players simply don’t have it on their side during the course of the season.
After all, when you’re trying to put a frozen rubber puck into a 72x48 inch net on a slippery surface that’s guarded by a crazy athletic specimen known as a goaltender, sometimes things just don’t go your way.
Here are four defencman that don’t have the puck luck on their side to start the season and still remain goal less.
Brent Burns
Off the ice, Brent Burns has found success and skyrocketed up the popularity charts for his cool style and fanatastic beard. But out on the ice this season, the Sharks blueliner has yet to find the back of the night in 19 games this season.
His cold streak stems back to last season, where the reigning Norris Trophy winner had just two goals in his final 29 games (including seven playoff matches) of the season, and hasn’t scored since April 6th. Burns is still a shot generating machine, leading all defenceman with 82 on the year, so expect the goals to start pouring in sooner rather than later.
While Burns has reached the 20-goal plateau in three of the last four seasons, he might be hard-pressed to reach that mark in the Sharks final 63 games, although it’s not out of the question considering the talent Burns possesses. For context, Burns had seven goals through 19 games last season.
Dustin Byfuglien
Dustin Byfuglien is a fantasy hockey player's dream.
If you’re in an all category league that includes hits, shots on goal, blocks, penalty minutes and points, then you want Byfuglien on your squad. While he’s still contributing in other aspects of the game, Byfuglien is still searching for his first goal of the season on a very talented Winnipeg Jets roster.
Big Buff is averaging almost one shot less per game this season at 2.39, compared to his 3.31 career average with the Jets and Thrashers franchise. While you shouldn’t count out the 32-year-old just yet, he isn’t exactly young anymore and has been on the ice for more shot attempts against than generated for the first time in his career. Byfuglien has seen an uptick in his assists per game, so at least he’s contributing in other aspects of the game.
Duncan Keith
Many pundits predicted the Chicago Blackhawks to take a step back this season, and while they currently sit in the Western Conference’s second wild card spot, their 10-8-2 record suggests that this rendition of the ‘Hawks is different from past juggernauts.
D-man Duncan Keith has just ten assists on the year and is on pace for his worst statistical seasons since the 2007-08 season.The ‘Hawks powerplay was once feared for it’s quick puck movment and myriad of talent.
This season, Chicago is only converting at 16.1 percent with the man advantage, slotting them in at 25th overall in the league. They’ve dropped considerably ever year since owning the second best powerplay in the 2015-16 season where they capitliazed 22.6 percent of the time. Keith is still the anchor on the blue line, quarterbacking their top unit. Generally speaking, if you’re power play quarterback isn’t producing at his career average, then your PP is going to struggle.
Ryan McDonagh
New York Rangers defenceman Ryan McDonagh has never been a big goal scorer from the back end, but he’s still one of the better defensive point producers out there, having scored no less than six goals and 34 points in his previous four seasons.
McDonagh’s underlying shot metrics are some of the best of his career. His CF%ref comes in a 5.6% (Corsi For relative to his temmates), which is the highest it’s ever been, meaning he’s having a strong impact on his teammates' possesion numbers whenever he’s deployed.
The Rangers struggled as a whole to start the season but are one of the hotter teams in the league at the moment. McDonagh’s goalless season has somewhat gone unnoticed thanks to Kevin Shattenkirk’s five goals, and the continued development of Brady Skjei.
