Canucks’ Kiefer Sherwood sets NHL single-season hits record

One of the more unique records in the game, covered in bumps and bruises, has been broken again.

On Saturday, in a game against the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks forward Kiefer Sherwood broke the NHL record for hits in a single season when threw the 384th check of the 2024-25 season.

Sherwood broke the record a whopping 20 seconds into the game when he threw a little bump in the neutral zone on former Canucks teammate Carson Soucy.

The previous record of 383 hits was set just last season, when Sherwood’s old teammate with the Nashville Predators, defenseman Jeremy Lauzon, beat and battered his way through the 2023-24 campaign. It was just one more than New York Islanders veteran Matt Martin’s mark that he set during the 2014-15 season.

It’s the third year in a row that Sherwood has registered triple digits in hits. In just 32 games with the Predators in 2022-23, he posted 103 checks, posting another 234 hits last season. At the time of this piece, Sherwood has 391 hits on the season, giving him 883 on his career that stretches across seven seasons.

While he isn’t a noted scorer, Sherwood is having the best offensive season of his NHL career. In 66 games, the 29-year-old has scored 15 goals and 14 assists for 29 points.

The hit statistic is still a relatively young tracking method in the eyes of the NHL. The league started tracking body checks in 2007-08. So many of the “all-time” leaders from the salary cap era. 29 players have posted 300 or more hits in a single season, with Martin accomplishing that feat five times.

Martin trails former Islanders teammate Cal Clutterbuck for the most hits in a career, with Martin sitting 107 behind Clutterbuck’s 4,029 body checks. Surprisingly, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, close to breaking Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record, is third all-time in hits with 3,728 in his Hall of Fame career.