Lost in all the chaos of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs race, a Philadelphia Flyers franchise record was broken.
For those who might not know, Nick Deslauriers set the Flyers’ record for hits in a season last year, recording 306 hits in 80 games. As of Friday night, that record has a new home.
Forward Garnet Hathaway, who was one of the Flyers’ key summer acquisitions, has bested Deslauriers’s total from 2022-23. Hathaway passed Deslauriers on Friday night and expanded his lead on Saturday night, now sitting at a whopping 312 hits in 78 games so far.
Before those two, former Flyers defenseman Radko Gudas held the record, laying 304 hits in 76 games in the 2015-16 season.
Current Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen appears further down the list. He made 230 hits in 66 games in the 2021-22 season.
Nashville defenseman Jeremy Lauzon actually leads the NHL in hits right now with 359, and he’s staring down the single-season NHL record as well. Robert Svehla holds the single-season record with 386 in 2001-02, so Lauzon has only a few games left to make a run at matching or breaking the record.
As for Hathaway, the Flyers forward currently ranks 22nd all-time in hits in a single season with his current total of 312. It is a near certainty that Hathaway will not touch Svehla or Lauzon’s totals this season, but a reasonable target might be Cal Clutterbuck’s 343 hits, which he accomplished with the Islanders in the 2014-15 season.
In his first season in the Orange and Black, Hathaway has become infamous for his post-whistle scrums and extracurriculars that get under the skin of the Flyers’ opponents. Things certainly aren’t going the way the team is hoping for right now, but it’s nice to see Hathaway get a bit of a reward for his hard work and some of his antics.
Away from the hits, the 32-year-old has posted seven goals and nine assists in his debut season with the Flyers, including three assists in his last five games.
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