This just might be hockey's most important statistic.
Never mind that the NHL doesn't hand out a trophy to recognize it. (Or an award, plaque or paper certificate, for that matter.)
Fact is, the league doesn't even offer a public accounting of the relevant numbers, the way it does with so many others.
Want to find out a player's offensive stats, how many shots he's blocked or how much power-play time he gets in a typical game?
No problem. All are just a few clicks way on the NHL's website.
Same for everything from each team's penalty-killing success rates to how many goals it has scored in a given period to its record with a specific number of days between games.
But you won't find anything about this most significant of stats among all those other figures.
No, man-games lost to injury and illness doesn't merit a mention on NHL.com.
That's a bit of a surprise, considering that just about every other statistic the league keeps is influenced by how often a player is healthy enough to be in uniform, and how many players aren't available to a particular club because of health-related issues.
Nonetheless, teams, including the Penguins, are well aware of how many players are compelled to sit out games because they are injured or sick, because there's an obvious correlation between fielding the best lineup possible and winning games.
And Penguins officials certainly realize that their team's total (pro-rated to 82 games when necessary) has risen in each of the past three seasons, even though they can't explain why that is the case.
"We've kind of looked at some of those things, but there's nothing at this point that we can point to," Ron Hextall said. "But it's certainly something that we're going to continue to try to keep a pulse on and see where it goes."
The following are the Penguins' totals of man-games lost for the past six seasons; that period covers the tenure of Mike Sullivan, who replaced Mike Johnston as coach in mid-December, 2015.
2015-16: 315
2016-17: 286
2017-18: 173
2018-19: 226
2019-20: 302 (projects to 359 over 82 games)
2020-21: 273 (projects to 400 over 82 games)
The Penguins dressed 35 players over the course of the 56-game 2020-21 regular season; Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel were the only two to appear in every game, although Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang made it into 55 each.
Having so many key players available nearly all of the time undoubtedly contributed to the Penguins' first-place finish in the East Division, but they still finished with one of the highest totals in the NHL.
St. Louis lost a league-high 381 man-games, while Calgary's players missed just 58.
"You really have to compare it to the rest of the league, and we are on the higher end," Hextall said. "It's been a few years here, so it's something that we're going to continue to evaluate, to try to figure out if there's a difference, what the difference is."
Injuries are, of course, an occupational hazard for hockey players, who operate in a physical, sometimes violent, workplace.
Bones break. Joints sprain. Shoulders separate. Ligaments tear.
With a lineup that, as currently constituted, won't be especially big and will have older players such as Crosby, Letang and Jeff Carter logging big minutes, it seems reasonable to project that the Penguins' medical staff won't have to worry about finding ways to stay busy during the coming season.
Which is why precisely who gets injured -- and much time time those players need to recover -- will be a critical variable in the Penguins' bid to extend their streak of playoff appearances to 16.
