It’s impossible to find the perfect hockey player. A player might reach 100 points but finish with a negative plus/minus. A defenseman could get a bunch of power-play points by rarely throw a hit. A heavy hitter might not get any penalty minutes.

It’s even more frustrating when a player refuses to provide anything in specific categories. We’re 20 per cent into the season, but there is still an abundance of players who have zero stats despite plenty of opportunity. Mathew Barzal scored his first goal of the season on Saturday. Evgenii Dadonov picked up his first point a week ago. Connor Murphy picked up his first assist of the season on Sunday night, 18 games into the season. Josh Anderson and Neal Pionk each picked up their first power-play points in the past seven days. Johnny Gaudreau collected his first hit of the season on Sunday night.

Below are 10 categories where players still have a zero in that specific category. For each category, we’ll quickly mention some other nominees before mentioning the winner. To make it fair, forwards and defensemen need to have a minimum of five games played, and goalies need to have at least two games. Also, to keep the same players from always winning, we’re going to limit each player to one category.

10. Hits

Other nominees: Quinn Hughes, Andrei Kuzmenko

And the winner is: Vinnie Hinostroza. The Sabres forward used to be okay when it came to hitting. He had 69 hits in 72 games one year in Arizona. Two years ago, he had 37 hits in 26 games. Not eye-popping numbers, but decent enough. Even last year, he still averaged 0.4 hits per game. He’s played 11 games this year and has more shorthanded points (one) than hits. I’m always surprised that players can go dozens many games without even accidentally bumping into an opponent and registering a hit.

9. Blocked shots

Other nominees: Jason Robertson, Tanner Laczynski, Jonah Gadjovich

And the winner is: Jake Guentzel. Usually, you might expect to see a defenseman in this spot, but there are no defensemen who have played five games without a blocked shot (although Casey Fitzgerald has only one blocked shot in 12 games for the Sabres). There are some forwards who do well in blocking shots, and although Guentzel doesn’t get any shorthanded minutes to help boost his blocked shots total, Guentzel is one of the more consistent forwards as he generally averages a blocked shot every second game. Going into this season, he had 200 blocked shots in 375 career games, but he has zero in 14 games so far this year.

8. Games played

Other nominees: Carey Price, Tom Wilson, Sean Couturier, Jakob Chychrun

And the winner is: Gabriel Landeskog. During the preseason, the early diagnosis was that he would only miss the beginning of the campaign with a lower-body injury. Reports during the first week of the regular season were that he would start skating that week, indicating it wouldn’t be a long-term injury. On October 19, it was announced he would be out for 12 weeks after undergoing knee surgery. Hindsight is great and all, but no one initially imagined he would be out this long. He’s still two months away from appearing in a game, which isn’t great for anyone who took him in a higher round hoping for an early return.

7. Plus/minus

Other nominees: Martin Necas, Bo Horvat, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Andrei Svechnikov, Cole Caufield, Mikhail Sergachev, Alex Tuch

And the winner is: Jonathan Marchessault. Many fantasy general managers prefer punting this category, but for those that don’t, they may assign a greater value to a player who normally has a high plus/minus. Marchessault came into this campaign with a plus-66 in five seasons with Vegas, and has never been a negative player during his time with the Golden Knights. Looking at him being a zero plus/minus player at this point is probably not what fantasy GMs had hoped for. However, it’s still much better than a minus-14, which is where the league’s worst plus/minus rates (owned by Alexander Ovechkin).

6. Wins

Other nominees: Philipp Grubauer

And the winner is: Jaroslav Halak. Halak was never going to challenge for a starter’s job in New York, but at this point, you can’t even use him in spot starts in your league. The Rangers are 9-2-3 when Igor Shesterkin tends net, and 0-4-1 when Halak is between the pipes. Halak has given up at least three goals in four of his games so far, and in the one game he didn’t, he gave up two on only 18 shots. This is great news for anyone who has Shesterkin, as it means he’s likely to get less rest if the backup can’t win a game.

5. Assists

Other nominees: Evgenii Dadonov, Jake Neighbours, Ondrej Palat, Jamie Drysdale, Filip Zadina

And the winner is: Max Comtois. The Anaheim winger is in his 200-game breakout threshold season, but someone apparently forgot to let him know. His most frequent linemates this season are Troy Terry, Isac Lundestrom, Trevor Zegras and Ryan Strome. They have a combined 21 goals between them, and somehow, Comtois hasn’t picked up an assist on any of those goals. On the season, Comtois has four goals in 15 games and has missed the last three games with a lower-body injury.

4. Power-play points

Other nominees: Tyler Bertuzzi, Tomas Tatar, Andrew Mangiapane, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Mikael Backlund, Joel Farabee, Paul Stastny

And the winner is: Seth Jarvis. Bertuzzi is getting a pass only because he’s played the five-game minimum, and one of those five games was when he played 8:14 before leaving the game with a hand injury. However, big things were expected from Jarvis this season, but he’s been one of the biggest disappointments so far. As a rookie a year ago, Jarvis had six man-advantage points in 68 games while averaging 1:21 per night on the power play. This year, he’s averaging 2:33 of power-play time per night, and for the past couple of games, have been moved to the top unit with no luck. All in all, a disappointment on every level so far.

3. Power-play goals

Other nominees: Mitchell Marner, Quinn Hughes, Patrick Kane, Elias Pettersson, Victor Hedman, Vladimir Tarasenko

And the winner is: Matthew Tkachuk. Tkachuk has been great for the Panthers but has been surprisingly unproductive on the power play. Last year, he had 12 goals and 29 points with the man advantage, both career highs. He’s hit double digits in power-play goals in three seasons, but this year, he has zero goals and six power-play assists. It’s one of the reasons why the Panthers have gone from a top-five power play a year ago to a bottom-10 this season.

2. Goals

Other nominees: Jacob Trouba, Teuvo Teravainen, Derek Stepan, Jake Sanderson, Quinn Hughes, Kailer Yamamoto, Jonathan Drouin, Dylan Holloway, Peyton Krebs, Shane Wright, Owen Power

And the winner is: Morgan Rielly. At 57 shots, Trouba leads the league in shots without a goal, but it’s Rielly who takes the trophy here. The Leafs’ defenseman is on the top power-play unit and averages 23-plus minutes a night. He had 10 goals a year ago and has a 20-goal season under his belt. Part of the reason for the zero is his cratering number of shots. He’s gone from averaging 2.7 shots per game a year ago to 1.7 shots this season.

1. PIM

Other nominees: Nate Schmidt, Jesper Boqvist, Aleksander Barkov, Oskar Lindblom, Jared McCann, Mark Scheifele, Jack Eichel, Jakub Voracek

And the winner is: Brad Marchand. It’s only been 10 games, but it’s a complete shock that Marchand hasn’t received even a minor penalty. This is a player who had 92 PIM in 70 games a year ago. He’s had 80 PIM in a season on seven occasions. The only time he failed to reach 50 PIM in any of the past nine years was in the Covid-shortened campaign when he had 46 PIM in 52 games. Anyone in a league that counts PIM has to be a little disappointed that Marchand hasn’t been his usual self in this category.