Obscure hockey facts/stats (Part 2)

[Big Phil]

I know Gretzky records never get old, and this one is no different. Not a record so much as the amount of times he is on this list. Point streaks in history. Gretzky leads this of course, but of the top 50 point streaks in NHL history (and it goes back to 18 games or higher) Gretzky is on that list 11 times. He is on the list 22% of the time, while the rest of the history of the NHL and its players occupy 78% of it. Why does this still surprise me?

 

[Kahvi]

Not that it matters much yet, but Aaron Dell currently has more losses on the season than he’s had games started. 4GS, 0-5-0 record.

Would be interesting to know if any goalie has finished the season with more losses than starts?

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Would be interesting to know if any goalie has finished the season with more losses than starts?

He got sent to Rochester, and is supposed to never play for the Sabres again. So it’ll happen at least once!

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Would be interesting to know if any goalie has finished the season with more losses than starts?

I felt this must have happened a bunch of times with guys who maybe only got a handful of games in on an awful team.

Here’s one with a few tries who had more losses than starts:

Marcel Pelletier played in 8 games between Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers in two different seasons more than a decade apart, 1951-52 and 1962-63. He had a total of five starts, but only one win, six losses and zero ties.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Went on to check if I was missing someone with a longer negative loss-to-start career in this regard, or whatever you may call this. There were some close calls, but I think Pelletier’s 6 losses for 5 starts was the worst.

@Kahvi From your name I’m guessing you’re from Finland? In that case you probably have fond memories of this legend.

My favorite goaltender of all time Jarmo Myllys was unfortunately pretty close to having more losses than starts. He had 30 NHL starts in total, but only four wins and a whopping 27 losses. Before his final NHL season, he had eight starts but only one win, and nine losses.

I guess we should count ourselves happy he had a brutal time in the NHL, since if he’d been a success over there Finland might have had to wait longer for its first world championship gold medal, and Luleå would still be waiting for its first Swedish championship.

 

[hacksaw7]

Bill Root led the 1984 Canadiens in +/-. He was +25. That's 14 pts ahead of the next closest player (Gainey)

Mike Eastwood led the NHL in shooting percentage in 1999-2000

 

[hacksaw7]

Not an obscure fact but an amazing one.

Between 12/21/1993 and the end of the Canucks regular season, Pavel Bure played in 50 games. His stats were

49 Goals, 29 assists for 78 total points in that 50 game stretch

Not one of those 50 goals in 50 games from the start of the season type things, but he almost did it starting at the 26 game mark

 

[The Panther]

The easy-to-forget brother of Mario, Alain Lemieux, made the Stanley Cup playoffs six years before Mario first did, on the 1983 St. Louis Blues, as a teammate of Guy Lapointe.

In 1984-85, bizarrely, Alain had a significantly higher shooting percentage than Mario.

Alain played his last NHL game on February 17th, 1987... as a Penguin (the only game he played for Pittsburgh). They lost 3-1 to the Flames, with Alain going scoreless and -1. Sadly, Mario was injured at the time, and by the time he came back to action, Alain was permanently out of the line-up (and out of the NHL).

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

The obscurity will decrease during the read, but here goes:


Most points by player who played in a total of X NHL season(s)

One season
Claude St. Sauveur, 1975-76
79 24-24-48 -7
Milan Novy, 1982-83
73 18-30-48 +4

Two seasons
Ivan Hlinka, 1981-83
137 42-81-123 +18

Three seasons
Pekka Rautakallio, 1979-82
235 33-121-154 +13

Four seasons
Blair MacDonald, 1979-1983
219 91-100-191 -8

Five seasons*
Marian Stastny, 1981-86
322 121-173-294 +9

Six seasons
Håkan Loob, 1983-89
450 193-236-429 +103

Seven seasons
Mike Rogers, 1979-86
484 202-317-519 -51

Eight seasons
Pierre Mondou, 1977-85
548 194-262-456 +213

Nine seasons
Kent Nilsson, 1979-87, 1994-95
553 264-422-686 -25

Ten seasons
Mike Bossy, 1977-87
752 573-553-1126 +380

Eleven seasons**
Rick Martin, 1971-82
685 384-317-701 +14

Twelve seasons
Bobby Orr, 1966-77, 1978-79
657 270-645-915 +582

13 seasons
Peter Forsberg, 1994-01, 2002-04, 2005-08, 2010-11
708 249-636-885 +238

14 seasons
Bernie Federko, 1976-90
1000 369-761-1130 -131

15 seasons
Peter Stastny, 1980-95
977 450-789-1239 -15

16 seasons
Dale Hawerchuk, 1981-97
1188 518-891-1409

17 seasons
Mario Lemieux, 1984-94, 1995-97, 2000-04, 2005-06
915 690-1033-1723 +114

18 seasons
Marcel Dionne, 1971-89
1348 731-1040-1771 +27

19 seasons
Adam Oates, 1985-04
1337 341-1079-1420 +33

20 seasons
Wayne Gretzky, 1979-99
1487 894-1963-2857 +520

21 seasons
Teemu Selänne, 1992-04, 2005-14
1451 684-773-1457 +95

22 seasons
Steve Yzerman, 1983-04, 2005-06
1514 692-1063-1755 +184

23 seasons
Ron Francis, 1981-04
1731 549-1249-1798 -18

24 seasons
Jaromir Jagr, 1990-04, 2005-08, 2011-18
1733 766-1155-1921 +322

25 seasons
Mark Messier, 1979-04
1756 694-1193-1887 +211

26 seasons
Gordie Howe, 1946-71, 1979-80
1767 801-1049-1850

Notes:
* Réal Cloutier played only 5 games in his 6th and final season, had a career statline of 146-198-344 in 318 GP

** René Robert played only 5 games in his 1st season out of 12, then had a career statline of 284–418-702 in 744 GP

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I also wanted to see what earlier-era players who only had a season in the NHL mustered, since the number of games in a season has (mostly) expanded throughout the history of the league.

Most points for players who only played one season

18-36 game era (1917-26)
Harry Hyland, 1917-18
17 14-2-16

• Hyland is noted for scoring the first ever hattrick in the very first NHL game in 1917. While he only played in the inaugural season of the NHL, he’d had a Hall of Fame career in the PCHA and NHA, winning the Stanley Cup once in 1909-10.

44-50 game era (1926-46)
Bill Cupolo, 1944-45
49 11-14-25

• It sort of figured that someone who only made the NHL during the war years would have the best singular season NHL career of this era. There were a couple of others who provided more solid offense than Cupolo in their one mostly-full season, however got another few games after the war before they were (most likely) cut. Cupolo was tied for 6th in scoring for the 4th-place 1944-45 Bruins who lost in 7 games of the 1st round against the Red Wings, who’d then fight back to tie a 3-game deficit before losing to the Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup finals.

60-70 game era (1946-67)
Neil Strain, 1952-53
52 11-13-24

• Career minor-leaguer Strain debuted for the bottom-dwelling Rangers age 26 where he finished 6th in team scoring. While 20 year old Andy Bathgate made his NHL debut this season (playing 18 games), the Rangers were led in scoring by Wally Hergesheimer who had a career year with 30 goals and 59 points.

74-80 game era (1967-1992)
Claude St. Sauveur, 1975-76
79 24-24-48 -7
and
Milan Novy, 1982-83
73 18-30-48 +4

• St. Sauveur spent most of his playing days in the WHA where he had a decent career and peaked at a team-leading 36 goals and 78 points for the 1977-78 Indianapolis Racers. He spent his only NHL season with the Atlanta Flames where he was 4th in team scoring.
• Novy was one of the premier Czechoslovakian players of the 70s, who peaked with a whopping 59-34-93 statline in 44 games in the domestic league in 1976-77. While his 48 points for the 1982-83 Capitals were respectable enough for a transitioning 31 year old, apparently Novy struggled adjusting to the North American game and left his NHL career at that.

82-84 game era (1992-today)
Jörgen Jönsson, 1999-00
81 12-19-31 -8

• Jönsson had a long and successful career in the SHL where he was one of its biggest names, as well as for Team Sweden. He probably could have had a nice career in the NHL had he left sooner, and left after one season spent between the Islanders and Mighty Ducks for family reasons.

 

[Mohar Ikram]

Since the introduction of NHL Amateur/Entry Drafts, Only three teams that has won a championship with top 2 picks of a certain draft classes. All 3 championships won by same club - Montreal Canadiens.

1971, 1973 SC: Rejean Houle (1st pick) and Marc Tardiff (2nd pick) of 1969 draft classes.
1986 SC: Bobby Smith (1st pick) and Ryan Walter (2nd pick) of 1978 draft classes

Further interesting facts about those guys:

- Both Bobby Smith and Ryan Walter are not picked by The Canadiens and only join the team via trades. They were picked by Minnesota North Stars and Washington Capitals respectively.
- Both Rejean Houle and Marc Tardiff leave Canadiens on the same off season (1973/74 offseason) to the WHA. Both were playing for Quebec Nordiques in WHA at one point of time. Unlike Marc, Rejean back to the Canadiens and won the later 3 cups of 4 in the back 70's for Canadiens. Marc stays with team until the Nordiques also plays in NHL.
- None of those 4 players are in the hall.
- For comparisons, this occurrence happened 4 times in NBA but in each of them, one of them being a draft pick of the said team. This is not a case in NHL as being said in 1986.

Personal Thoughts:

- Bobby Smith shall be a HOF.
- North Stars absolutely wasting Smith's career (also Broten's and Modano's). Goes to the final in both 81 and 91 which ended up losing terribly against NYI and PIT.

 

[Kahvi]

Oilers D Dmitri Samorukov played his first NHL game last night and finished with -2 and 2:28 TOI, and was sent back to AHL after the game. So most likely he'll have -1 per 1:14 TOI for a while until he gets more games.

This is the definition of small sample size, so what is the worst career +/- when you look at TOI (and not only games played)? Or best?

 

[Kahvi]

Since the introduction of NHL Amateur/Entry Drafts, Only three teams that has won a championship with top 2 picks of a certain draft classes. All 3 championships won by same club - Montreal Canadiens.

1971, 1973 SC: Rejean Houle (1st pick) and Marc Tardiff (2nd pick) of 1969 draft classes.
1986 SC: Bobby Smith (1st pick) and Ryan Walter (2nd pick) of 1978 draft classes

I have no idea how to search for this, but I would guess it's rare for a team to even have 1st and 2nd picks of a certain draft playing for them. Panthers of course now have 1st, 2nd, and 4th picks of 2014 draft, but that's the only one I can think of right now.

Thornton and Marleau as well, dont know how I forgot this one

 

[Johnny Engine]

Oilers D Dmitri Samorukov played his first NHL game last night and finished with -2 and 2:28 TOI, and was sent back to AHL after the game. So most likely he'll have -1 per 1:14 TOI for a while until he gets more games.

This is the definition of small sample size, so what is the worst career +/- when you look at TOI (and not only games played)? Or best?

I've found two.

Tim Ramholt - 0:45 for each minus
Andrei Vasiliyev - 0:39 for each minus

Vasiliyev, I remember seeing on one of those TSN end of year highlights things (happy new year everyone!) where he dangled a goalie mid air while being tripped. This was in 1995, before the NHL tracked TOI officially, so his minus-2 in barely over a minute comes from the last game of his career, a little over 3 years later in Phoenix. His +/- over the previous seasons in Long Island is actually above water, so he is technically not the answer to this question.

Ramholt, who I do not have a festive anecdote for, has no such caveats and appears to be the answer.

Looks like Samorukov is #2 in this category.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Oilers D Dmitri Samorukov played his first NHL game last night and finished with -2 and 2:28 TOI, and was sent back to AHL after the game. So most likely he'll have -1 per 1:14 TOI for a while until he gets more games.

This is the definition of small sample size, so what is the worst career +/- when you look at TOI (and not only games played)? Or best?

I believe the record is Tim Ramholt. He played a single game (November 29th, 2007) for the Calgary Flames. He played two shifts, both at even-strength, totalling 45 seconds, and was on the ice for one goal against (Todd Marchant). That was less than six minutes into the first period, and he never saw another second of action.

With the obvious caveat that this is a ridiculously small sample size - Tim Ramholt was -1 in 45 seconds (-80 per 60 minutes). In your example, Samorukov is approximately -49 per 60 minutes.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Also, Brian Weisenberg has the lowest TOI in the one game, plus one club, at 1:08. The lowest total TOI of anyone with a plus two is over ten minutes, so I think Weisenberg has that one.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I believe the record is Tim Ramholt. He played a single game (November 29th, 2007) for the Calgary Flames. He played two shifts, both at even-strength, totalling 45 seconds, and was on the ice for one goal against (Todd Marchant). That was less than six minutes into the first period, and he never saw another second of action.

This only counts as a festive anecdote if you're the kind of psychopath who thinks Christmas can start before December.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Say you were to put this five-man unit together:

1999 Andrei Vasiliyev - 1999 Ryan Savoia* - 2010 Danny Irmen**
2007 Tim Ramholt - 2022 Dmitri Samorukov

* 7:21 for every minus
* 9:16 for every minus

And play them in front of 1994 Daniel Berthaiume (184.62 GAA), and assumed they'd perform the same way in perpetuity, and that their linemates had no effect on them, what would be the best mathematical strategy for predicting how often they'd get scored on? @Hockey Outsider ?

Also, does anyone know how to milk a perfectly spherical cow?

 

[reckoning]

I have no idea how to search for this, but I would guess it's rare for a team to even have 1st and 2nd picks of a certain draft playing for them. Panthers of course now have 1st, 2nd, and 4th picks of 2014 draft, but that's the only one I can think of right now.

Thornton and Marleau as well, dont know how I forgot this one

Lafleur and Dionne were teammates with the Rangers in 88-89.

Lindros and Falloon were teammates briefly in Philadelphia.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Also, does anyone know how to milk a perfectly spherical cow?

While I'm referencing silly science jokes in a hockey history forum, I just need to get this one dumb thought out of my head.

Three academics are debating who the best defenseman was on the Sundin-era Maple Leafs.
The engineer says "it's definitely Dmitri Yushkevich, he was the foundation that team was built on."
The biologist says "no, it's Tomas Kaberle, he was so calm with the puck he seemed cold-blooded."
The economist says "you're both wrong, and I can prove to you who that team's best defenseman was, beyond any doubt."
The other two ask him, how can you do that?
"Well, assume a can opener..."

 

[ecemleafs]

Lafleur and Dionne were teammates with the Rangers in 88-89.

Lindros and Falloon were teammates briefly in Philadelphia.

Hamrlik and Yashin with the Islanders in the early 2000s.

 

[The Panther]

Another Gretzky one to add to the pile:

From January 1981 to April 1988 (7.5 regular seasons, consecutively), Gretzky scored 1,093 non-Power Play points in 582 games.

Per 80 games, that's 150 points per season, with zero power-play points.

This is how other forwards compare in this same period:

150 points - Gretzky
89 points - Kurri
87 points - Bossy
82 points - M. Lemieux
77 points - P. Stastny
77 points - Messier
71 points - Goulet
70 points - D. Savard
70 points - Anderson
69 points - Hawerchuk


Incidentally, if you're into the Gretzky vs. Lemieux thing, it's interesting to compare their non-PP production in maybe the only period in their careers when both were more-or-less healthy and in their primes -- that being October 1987 to mid-February (Adam Graves' slash) 1990:

118 points - Gretzky
106.5 points - Lemieux

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Tie Domi (the Leafs' designated fighter for most of the Mats Sundin era) scored 2 goals in consecutive games (November 29th, 2000 against the Pronger/MacInnis-era Blues, and then November 30th, 2000 against the hapless NY Islanders).

Has there ever been a weaker offensive talent to score 2+ goals in consecutive games? (In his career, Domi scored 104 goals and 245 games in 1,020 games).

 

[The Panther]

I was looking at Mark Messier's first season with the Rangers (1991-92) and kind of reviewing that club's year when I noticed a statistical oddity, which was Mess's plus/minus in The Rangers' 42nd game of the season (which was Mess's 41st), on January 4th, 1992 @ New Jersey. At Brendan Byrne Arena, the Devils won 6-4, and Messier was -6 for the game. The Devils scored 6 even strength goals and Mess was on the ice for every single one! Tony Amonte was also -6, so clearly that line had a rough night, but nobody else on the Rangers was worse than -3.

Mess himself was only worse than -2 in one other game that whole season (vs. Washington he went -3 one night), so that -6 is a real outlier. I checked his past with Edmonton, and only three times in twelve years did Mess go -4 in a single game with the Oilers. (Believe it or not, only once was he ever worse than -3 with the Canucks, which was a -4 game vs. Toronto in March 2000 and even then I think he was for the overtime goal against to go -4.)

In fact, I checked his entire career, that that -6 holds up as the single worst result. (Twice he went -5: once as a rookie with Edmonton, and once in the Rangers' 11-6 loss to Buffalo in that weird 1992-93 season.)

 

[Staniowski]

I was looking at Mark Messier's first season with the Rangers (1991-92) and kind of reviewing that club's year when I noticed a statistical oddity, which was Mess's plus/minus in The Rangers' 42nd game of the season (which was Mess's 41st), on January 4th, 1992 @ New Jersey. At Brendan Byrne Arena, the Devils won 6-4, and Messier was -6 for the game. The Devils scored 6 even strength goals and Mess was on the ice for every single one! Tony Amonte was also -6, so clearly that line had a rough night, but nobody else on the Rangers was worse than -3.

Mess himself was only worse than -2 in one other game that whole season (vs. Washington he went -3 one night), so that -6 is a real outlier. I checked his past with Edmonton, and only three times in twelve years did Mess go -4 in a single game with the Oilers. (Believe it or not, only once was he ever worse than -3 with the Canucks, which was a -4 game vs. Toronto in March 2000 and even then I think he was for the overtime goal against to go -4.)

In fact, I checked his entire career, that that -6 holds up as the single worst result. (Twice he went -5: once as a rookie with Edmonton, and once in the Rangers' 11-6 loss to Buffalo in that weird 1992-93 season.)

It looks like Messier and Amonte were playing against:
Lemieux - +6
Stastny - +5
Zelepukin - +4
Fetisov - +5
Kasatonov- +5