A rain of goals this season in the NHL: a retrospective in numbers | You have seen?

The Florida Panthers’ strike force has been impressive throughout the schedule, led by Jonathan Huberdeau. The star striker set up 85 of the team’s 340 goals, giving him an astronomical average of 1.04 assists per game. Moreover, it is the best offensive performance for a Quebec player since Mario Lemieux in 1995-1996.

No NHL team in 25 years has scored as many goals as the Panthers this season and their average of 4.15 per game.

We have to go back to the 1995-1996 campaign to find a team with four or more goals per game. Led by Ron Francis, Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux, the Pittsburgh Penguins had maintained the blistering pace of 4.41 goals per game.

In the four corners of the NHL, the average of goals scored per team during a game stands at 3.12, a peak not seen since that same 1995-1996 season.

Before the Panthers, the best team of the millennium was the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2018-2019 edition, with 3.89 goals per game and a total of 319 achievements.

Through the power play?

The power play in the Bettman circuit is also at its strongest. The average percentage of efficiency of 20.59% is good for the 13th rank since this annual statistic is counted in 1963-1964.

In this regard, there is consistency with previous seasons. In 2020-2021, the average efficiency percentage (19.78%) was 20th in history, while that of 2019-2020 was slightly ahead at 18th place (20.03%).

Full left

To come back to Huberdeau, the Quebecer’s 85 assists are a record for a left winger, which belonged to Joe Juneau (70 in 1992-1993) until very recently.

In fact, the Juneau brand wasn’t just shattered by Huberdeau. Two other players also shattered him: Johnny Gaudreau, of the Calgary Flames, and Artemi Panarin, of the New York Rangers, accomplices this season of 75 and 74 goals.

A scorer above the others

Still on an individual level, Auston Matthews stood out for the consistency and frequency with which he hit the target. He smashed the Toronto Maple Leafs record, which previously belonged to Rick Vaive (54 in 1981-1982).

On his way to his 60 goals, the winner of the Maurice-Richard trophy, awarded to the best sniper, rode a formidable streak of 51 goals in 50 games during the calendar. A cruising speed that no hockey player had maintained since Lemieux in 1995-1996.

The select club of 60-goal scorers welcomes a new member for the first time in a decade. Steven Stamkos was the last in line after his fabulous 2011-2012 season of 60 goals, while Alexander Ovechkin, author of 65 successes in 2007-2008, completes the all-star trio having reached this plateau in the last 26 years.

Prolific Roman Josi

At one point, it was believed that Nashville Predators defenseman Roman Josi would hit the 100-point plateau. A handful of guards can claim to have compiled a hundred points in a single season, including Paul Coffey, Brian Leetch, Al MacInnis, Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin. Among this star quintet, Orr (6) and Coffey (5) are the only ones to have accomplished the feat on more than one occasion.

Roman Josi failed to break the 100 point mark. Even if the figure does not have the same cachet, the plateau of 90 points is not easier to reach. With his 96 points, the Swiss becomes only the ninth defender to do so, in a group where we must add Raymond Bourque, Phil Housley and Gary Suter to the five producers of 100 points or more.

Brian Leetch was the last to join this prized group with his 102 points during the 1991-92 campaign.

This is all the more remarkable for Josi as he is the first to reach 90 points since the establishment of the salary cap in 2005. The last player to have crossed this mark before him is Raymond Bourque in 1993-1994, almost 30 years ago.