Well, that's all she wrote on the regular season.
This years' 81 goals scored is the lowest of any season since I started doing this about 7 years ago, and that includes the COVID shortened seasons..!
Montreal had an impressive 8 first time goal scorers (Slafkovsky, Xhekaj, Guhle, Kovacevic, Richard, Belzile, Farrell, Condotta)!
Columbus was in a close second with 7 goal scores by squeaking Angle in the last game (Johnson, Bjork, Marchenko, Berni, Foudy*, Luoto, Angle), and their only 1 first goal against gives them the best differential at +6. Columbus was second last year as well, for first goals scored.
Buffalo led the league with an unfortunate 6 first goals against (Guhle, Perbix, Zboril, Lucchini, Pelletier, Angle), again, with Angle's goal coming in the last minute. Three other teams - CGY, STL, VAN - had 5 goals against. No one ran away with the negative differential, though. BUF, CGY, PIT, and STL each had -3.
Speaking of Pittsburgh, none of Pittsburgh, Colorado, or Florida had a first time goal scorer, this year.
All teams had at least one against.
Not a lot of first goals this year, but there was an impressive 25 first time hattricks.
There was also 15 goalies who got their first win this year, and 6 who had their first shutout.
I'll keep tracking any first goals, hattricks, wins, or shutouts throughout the playoffs.