It took him until the final game of the season, but Nashville Predators defenseman Jeremy Lauzon sits alone at the top of the NHL record book.
The 26-year-old blue-liner entered Monday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins needing nine hits to break Matt Martin’s decade-long record for single-season hits, and he got exactly that.
Lauzon is now the NHL’s new hit king, and he did it in just 79 games (he missed three games with a lower-body injury in mid-March).
Lauzon’s record-breaking hit came toward the end of the third period.
As he was skating back to defend Penguins forward Rickard Rakell, Lauzon lowered his shoulder, slammed Rakell into the boards and separated him from the puck before spinning around to clear the zone.
Martin, a forward for the New York Islanders, had dominated the category for a while. He occupied the top three spots on the single-season hits list, and he was — until this year — the only player in league history to record 365 or more hits in a season.
The new top five is below, with former Predators defenseman Mark Borowiecki rounding out the group, though his 364-hit season came back in 2016 when he was a member of the Ottawa Senators.
- Lauzon, 383
- Martin, 382
- Martin, 374
- Martin, 365
- Borowiecki, 364
Lauzon shattered the previous Predators franchise record set by Tanner Jeannot (318) in 2021. He now has the most and third-most hits (250, which he accomplished last season) in Predators history.
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