Ben Bishop’s 14-save shutout was the easiest in years

There’s no such thing as an easy shutout in the NHL, but the New York Islanders definitely didn’t ask too much of Ben Bishop on Friday night. The Dallas Stars netminder needed just 14 saves to record his first shutout of the season. It’s the lowest save total in an NHL shutout since 2015.

The Stars had little trouble in their 5-0 win over the Islanders. They scored three times in the first period and had their full lead intact late in the second period. You’d expect score effects to start coming into play at that point, with New York becoming more aggressive to push for goals, but instead it mustered just four shots on goal in the third period.

That was the running theme of the game: The Islanders couldn’t get the puck on net. Other than a play in the second period where Tyler Seguin needed to swipe a loose puck away from the blue paint, Bishop was largely unchallenged. Of New York’s 36 shot attempts, 10 were blocked and another 12 missed the net entirely.

Over the past 30 years, just 47 shutouts have occurred with fewer than 14 shots on goal, per Hockey-Reference’s Play Index. In an amazing twist of fate, the most recent example also involved Bishop, who recorded a 13-save shutout as a member of the Lightning on Dec. 4, 2014. In 2015, John Gibson and Niklas Svedberg have also recorded 14-shot shutouts.

But nobody had since then, until Bishop on Friday.

Now, that’s not to say that the Islanders did nothing. Their expected goals total, which estimates how many goals they should’ve scored on average based on their shot data, was 1.22, per Corsica. So it’s not like Bishop had nothing to do because, again, there are no easy shutouts at hockey’s highest level.

But there are definitely easier shutouts than others, and this will go down as one of Bishop’s least taxing nights of his career.