Most Goals, none on the Powerplay

There was a pretty cool stat on the Canucks game broadcast tonight; Alex Burrows is far and away leading the league in most goals scored without collecting one on the power play. With 27 goals scored he is six ahead of Calgary’s Rene Bourque who in turn is five ahead of Carolina’s Chad Larose at 16. In fact Burrows is now forth all-time for most goals in a season without a PPG.

Doug Smail makes the top ten twice with 25 goals two years after his 31. He would later score 25 again while scoring only one on the powerplay. The Jets of 84/85 had the fifth best powerplay in the NHL led by the likes of Dale Hawerchuk, Paul MacLean, Thomas Steen and Brian Mullen. They were anchored by Dave Babych and Randy Carlyle who notched six PPG’s each. Smail would go on to tally 210 career goals with only six of them on the powerplay!
Mike Donnelly of the Kings would parlay his big year into far more powerplay time the following year than Smail received. Donnelly scored 29 goals again in 92/93, this time notching eight of them on the powerplay.
The late 70’s Bruins were in the post-Espo and Orr era. Led by Don Cherry, they managed to succeed by spreading the scoring around. In 1977/78 when Stan Jonathan scored 27 goals and no PPG, the team leaders among forwards were Terry O’Reilly, Gregg Sheppard and Peter McNab with only 5 PPG each. Jonathan would actually not score a powerplay goal through the next three seasons until 1981. 77/78 was the year the Bruins set the record with eleven 20 goal men, Jean Ratelle scored 25 with only 3 PPG, Rick Middleton scored 25 with 2 PPG and Wayne Cashman and Bob Miller had one PPG each with 24 and 20 goals respectively. Cleary, Jonathan wasn’t out of the ordinary on that squad. The Bruins would finish 12th of 18 teams on the powerplay but still garnered 113 points.
They would improve slightly to 9th the following year when John Wensink scored 28 without a PPG. Cashman, Ratelle and Middleton would all score at least ten goals on the powerplay. Wensink, like Jonathan would go at least two more seasons before scoring a PPG in 1980.
Bob Errey’s 26 powerplay-less goals in 88/89 came on the greatest powerplay team in history. The Pens scored an amazing 119 PPG’s that season, led by Mario’s 31, Rob Brown’s 24 and Dan Quinn’s 16. Much like Wensink, Jonathan and Smail, Errey would continue his non powerplay ways. In the next three years, he would collect 20, 20 and 19 goals without even one with the man advantage!
This leaves us with Burrows. One would think that he will sooner than later be rewarded with more time on the powerplay. The fact that Burrows in second on the Canucks in goals scored (3 behind Daniel Sedin); I don’t believe he will go two or three seasons more without a powerplay goal.

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