Not quite sure if this belongs here or in the game room, so feel free to move it. Me and a friend of mine were talking about this when it looked like the Leafs were going to go 4 games without a single goal (they scored late in the game, so it was only a 3 game drought), but our Google-fu must be weak since we can’t find any statistics on it.
I think this is more suitable to the Game Room.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I would have guessed it would’ve been my favorite team, The Washington Capitals, during their abysmal expansion year, 1974-1975. But although they DO own the record for fewest goals scored during a season for that year (and only won 8 games all season), it looks like their longest goal-less streak was 2 games.
Oops, I’m actually wrong about the Caps owning the ‘fewest goals scored in a season’ record; I misread their Wiki page. Turns out the '53-'54 Blackhawks have that honor.
Games back in the 20s-40s were much lower scoring. The defense in those days rarely ventured past the red line. In the 1928-9 season Hainesworth had 22 shutouts in 44 games as goalie for the Canadiens. I suspect some teams might have gone several scoreless games in a row.
Couldn’t find the record for goalless streaks, but in the other direction, Alec Connell had 461 minutes, 29 seconds, of shutout. That’s a span of seven games and two periods for the 1927-28 Ottawa Senators.
I read something recently that up until the 1929-30 season, NHL rules didn’t allow the puck to be passed forward in the offensive zone, so that era clearly would have had much lower levels of offense overall. I can’t find anything that answers the OP’s question, which seems strange in this day and age of stat tracking for every damned thing imaginable.
The best info I could find is the Chicago Blackhawks had an eight game scoreless streak during 1928-29 season. From hockey-reference.com
That was a shorter season.
I’ve been digging through the hockey data base, looking at the schedules of teams with really terrible offenses, and actually what the Leafs did is really kind of amazing. The 53-54 Blackhawks, incredibly, were never shut out three times in a row. I went through all kinds of abysmal teams in the low scoring era of the early 2000s, featuring teams that didn’t really score much more than the 53-54 Hawks, and it took me quite a few tries to find the 01-02 Blue Jackets, one of the worst scoring teams in recent memory, who did indeed manage to be shut out three times in a row - in four nights no less - by Florida, Tampa Bay, and Colorado.
When the Leafs were shut out three straight times I just figured it was a fluke that happens from time to time, but indeed it rarely happens.