An Interesting Look at Who Has the Hat-Tricks This Season
We are more than halfway through the 2009-2010 season, and there are many teams that have surprised fans. What may be more surprising is which teams have recorded hat tricks this season. There are eight teams left who have not done it yet this season.
The league leading Chicago Blackhawks are one of those eight teams. The others are: Buffalo, Washington, Colorado, Rangers, Anaheim, Atlanta, and Edmonton. Even the last place Carolina Hurricanes have recorded a hat trick—three times.
Washington leads the league in goals with 182, easily the most in the league. However, not one of their players have scored three goals in one game. Some may argue “that is because they have so many talented goal scorers”. To respond to that, the San Jose Sharks have had three hat tricks this season. They had two from Dany Heatley and one from Patrick Marleau.
Even with all their firepower, there are still four other teams who have at least three hat tricks this season. Florida, who are below average in the standings have Steven Reinprecht, Nathan Horton, and Steven Weiss all record three goals in one game.
Ottawa has hit for the hat four times this season. They received hat tricks from Milan Michalek, Daniel Alfredsson, and Alex Kovalev, who did it twice. Kovalev also scored four goals in one game, the most for any player in one game this season.
The two teams that lead the league in hat tricks are Pittsburgh and Vancouver. Pittsburgh has done it five times this season; Sidney Crosby twice, Evgeni Malkin twice and Mike Rupp once. The Canucks hit for the hat five times this season. They came from both of the Sedins, Mason Raymond, and Alex Burrows did it twice. Burrows recorded a hat trick two games in a row for the Canucks.
Out of the top seven teams in the league, there have only been five hat tricks, three of which were by the Sharks. Out of the bottom seven in the league, there have been six hat tricks, both by Carolina. Philadelphia, Islanders, Calgary, Minnesotea, and Montreal have also recorded hat tricks twice this season.
There have been 41 hat tricks this season, which may sound like a lot…and it is. After tallying all of the totals up, there is a 1 in 35 chance a team will get a hat trick. Attending an NHL game will give fans a 1 in 18 chance of seeing a hat trick, a stat that the NHL posted at the beginning of the season.
Here is a month by month look at the number of hat tricks:
October: 10
November: 10
December: 5
January: 6
Out of the eight teams without a hat trick, which ones do you think will be the last to do it?