Pens, Habs lead NHL in man-games lost to injury

While the NHL doesn't release these numbers publicly, all 30 NHL teams track their man-games lost to injury during the season.

Here are their totals, sorted by man-games lost per game, as of their most recent game:

Rank	Team	GP	Pts	MGL	MGL/G
1	Pittsburgh	57	69	278	4.9
2	Montreal	58	56	279	4.8
3	NY Islanders	57	56	270	4.7
4	Buffalo	57	54	252	4.4
5	Columbus	57	40	252	4.4
6	Florida	56	65	244	4.4
7	Calgary	58	63	247	4.3
8	Winnipeg	59	60	238	4.0
9	St. Louis	57	77	229	4.0
10	Minnesota	57	59	219	3.8
11	Philadelphia	57	71	204	3.6
12	Edmonton	56	50	195	3.5
13	Vancouver	57	78	183	3.2
14	Toronto	58	64	183	3.2
15	New Jersey	56	68	176	3.1
16	Washington	56	61	175	3.1
17	NY Rangers	56	79	170	3.0
18	Colorado	58	60	174	3.0
19	Tampa Bay	57	56	168	2.9
20	Ottawa	60	68	165	2.8
21	Anaheim	57	57	156	2.7
22	Carolina	57	53	129	2.3
23	Dallas	57	61	120	2.1
24	Detroit	58	80	118	2.0
25	Los Angeles	58	65	112	1.9
26	Nashville	57	72	102	1.8
27	San Jose	55	69	97	1.8
28	Phoenix	58	65	93	1.6
29	Chicago	58	67	64	1.1
30	Boston	55	72	41	0.7

Not surprisingly, many of the teams with few injuries are near the top of the standings, with all of the seven least injured teams currently in playoff position.

Not that there aren't issues with these numbers. Man-games lost counts a game missed by Sidney Crosby as valued at the same as a game by a fourth line winger, and it also counts players like Andrei Markov and Rick DiPietro who are often out for long stretches of the season.

Still, there is a correlation coefficient of roughly -0.35 between points in the standings and man-games lost this season.

It's very difficult to win anything in the NHL while having 400 MGL, which is what Pittsburgh and Montreal are on pace for.