One of the worst things to see when monitoring box scores is seeing your fantasy players with a line of zeroes.

We've all been there, seeing your player finish with zero goals, zero assists, zero power-play points, zero shots and zero hits. It's pretty much the same as having the mascot in your lineup.

It's extremely frustrating, and if you're lucky, you'll only see it a couple of times each season. It's even worse if some of your players have zeroes in fantasy categories at this point of the season.

It may seem early still, but the quarter-mark of this shortened season is 14. Vancouver is already past that, and a good chunk of teams will hit that mark this week. That's not good if you're still waiting for some players to snap out of their slump. 

Below are 10 categories where there are players who have yet to register a single mark in each of them. As many players are struggling, we'll be looking at a couple of names for each category instead of just one name.

10. Blocked shots

While forwards can get blocked shots, you look to defenseman to stuff this stat. Most defensemen have picked up a blocked shot, so there's one clear choice here. Mikko Lehtonen is the only defenseman to play at least four games and not be credited with a blocked shot. He's averaged 10:19 through five games with no shorthanded time. At least he's helped out with three assists and a power-play point, including two points Saturday night against Vancouver.

9. Plus/minus

If you don't believe plus/minus should be a fantasy category, you can skip this one. However, many leagues still use this stat, so we shouldn't ignore it. Jeff Petry and Joel Edmundson lead at plus-14, and Quinn Hughes is the worst at minus-12. The best player to have an exact zero plus/minus? Connor McDavid. The Oilers superstar has played 11 of 13 games this year where he finished with either a minus-one, plus-one or even. In his five-point game against Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, he was a minus-one. If you're a McDavid owner, you accept a low plus-minus, but it's amazing that he doesn't have a higher rating considering his gaudy point totals.

8. Points

Fifty-two players have played at least five games and have yet to record a point. Most are defensive defensemen or bottom-six players, but two names stand out: Alex Chiasson, who gets a ton of power-play time; and Noel Acciari, who many hoped could improve from his 20-goal, 27-point season a year ago. However, his ice time is down almost 1:30 per game and he has yet to get a point in nine games.

7. Wins

Thomas Greiss could have been here, who was winless in nine games before picking up the W on Sunday. Devan Dubnyk may be the bigger surprise, especially considering his partner-in-crime. Martin Jones has a history of collecting wins with awful numbers, and he's doing it again this year. Just compare their stats:

Dubnyk: 0-3-1 record, 2.91 GAA, 0.917 SV %

Jones: 4-2-0 record, 3.87 GAA, 0.876 SV %

Dubnyk has been the better goalie, but has zero wins. Jones has been pulled in two of six starts, while Dubnyk hasn't in his four starts. Dubnyk was brought in to push Jones and probably replace him as the starter, but that's not going to happen if Dubnyk is not winning games.

6. Losses

Of course, not all zeroes are bad. Several netminders have zero losses to start the season, most notably Marc-Andre Fleury and Jaroslav Halak. However, the most surprising name belongs to Sergei Bobrovsky. Another remarkable stat is that every game of Bobrovsky's has gone into extra time. He does have an overtime loss, but many leagues give points to goalies who lose in overtime/shootouts, so we're not going to count it as a pure loss. The rest of his numbers (3.57 GAA, 0.881 SV %, one quality start) aren't encouraging, so expect a continuing rotating schedule with backup Chris Driedger, who has a 3-1-1 record with better numbers.

5. PIM

Most of the players who have zero PIM so far this season normally don't pick up many penalties, but there is one name that deserves a bit of attention: Evgeni Malkin, an underrated PIM producer. The Penguins centre has accumulated 498 PIM since 2013-14, which puts him in the top 25 over that span. That's a crazy stat considering most of the players ahead of him pick up fighting majors (Malkin has had four regular season fights in that time). Malkin's 237 minors in the past seven-plus years are the fifth-highest during that period. The lack of PIM is just another disappointment for many Malkin owners this year, as he has six points, 22 shots and one power-play point in 11 games to go along with the zero PIM.

4. Hits

There are four players to have played a minimum of eight games and have yet to record a hit. Brett Pesce has zero in eight games, which is a little surprising considering he's a regular defenseman who plays almost 22 minutes a night. However, he did have only 22 hits last year after three straight seasons in the 50s, so maybe that's his style of game. Then there's Josh Bailey and Victor Olofsson, who have goose eggs in 10 games. Victor Arvidsson has zero in 11 games. This is one of the reasons why you need to drop these guys down pre-draft rankings. If they're not getting points, they don't contribute enough in other categories. Bailey, for example, has three points. You are better off with someone projected to get fewer points but help out elsewhere. Let's also mention Jamie Benn, who has zero hits in five games. He had 167 last year, and has at least 115 in nine of the last 11 years.

3. Assists

There are a few names worth mentioning. Wayne Simmonds has the most goals (five) and power-play goals (three) without an assist. Brandon Sutter has yet to get an assist in 15 games. Rookie phenom Alexis Lafreniere has a zero. Pierre-Luc Dubois as well, but his lack of effort before the trade was well-documented. Kevin Fiala is the biggest shocker. It's not helping that he's on the second line away from Kirill Kaprizov. Fiala has three goals and zero assists in eight games, but there's no reason to be concerned. He has 30 shots, lots of power-play time and plenty of offensive zone starts. We also saw him start slow last year, when he had one point in his first eight games before reeling off 53 in his next 56.

2. Power-play points

Eight players have been on the ice for at least 50 percent of their team's power-play minutes, with an average of at least two power-play minutes per game (minimum five games) and have yet to record a PPP. Despite averaging 4:32 per game on the first unit, Alex Chiasson has yet to pick up a PPP point. Ryan Strome, who had 17 PPP a year ago, is averaging 3:36 per game this year. Teuvo Teravainen has played six games, but it's a little surprising he has yet to get a PPP considering he had at least 20 in each of the last three years. Let's also take a second to honour Nikita Gusev. In nine games, he has zeroes in goals, PIM, power-play points and faceoff wins. To make matters worse, he has just one point, hit and blocked shot. He is obviously not fantasy relevant right now.

1. Goals

The lack of goal-scoring is surprising for some players. Nineteen players have at least 20 shots and zero goals. Filip Hronek has the most shots with 28, followed by P.K. Subban and Duncan Keith at 27 apiece. David Krejci has the most points (nine) without a goal. Kris Letang leads in ice-time per game (averaging 24:30 per night). The highest-salaried players are Subban and Jeff Skinner, the latter with one assist in 10 games despite making $9 million a year. Anthony Duclair had 23 goals last year, but still hasn't bulged the twine this season. You know there's a GM out there somewhere with all of these names on their squad who can't believe his bad luck.