Low scoring yes, but also there's a minus-24 the year before that which, yeah, that's a team effects thing, but it undoubtably makes a honking sound when you look at it.
I think the "where did this guy come from" aspect has more to do with the fact that I don't remember anyone, whether it was me, my friends, my dad, broadcasters, etc, singling him out as a bright spot on a team that was dismantling the Ellett/Macoun/Gill core from the fun years (and in the process of booing Larry Murphy out of town). It was never "they should get rid of Murphy and play that Yooshka guy more" or anything like that. And then of course you look at the stats page of the sports section and he doesn't make any more of a case for himself there, that's all. And then all of a sudden there's a new coach, a new partner (who I had already seen in St. John's), a new goalie, and he's just killing it, visibly the third most valuable guy on the team. There's a lesson there for sure.
Regarding the zero goals thing, I wonder if
@pnep can tell us how many teams have had 3 skaters play the majority of an 80+ game schedule and not score. The 19-20 Wings had Daley, Biega, and forward Abdelkader play 43, 49 and 49 respectively. Not quite as frustrating as the 72, 67 and 59 that the 3 guys on the 98 Leafs played, but they qualify for those parameters.
The McTank Sabres only had 2, same with the expansion Senators, Zettler (again) is the only guy on the Sharks team that was chasing them. Neither of the Penguins' dive for a superstar seasons have a guy. I wouldn't be surprised if the Leafs trio played the most cuumulative games of any trio that meets that specification. Again, pretty fluky all round.
Edit: incorrect about the Sabres
Edit again: hold up pnep, I've done some manual looking and have a thread to post later on.