Hi Albert - yes, that seems to be a possibility. Certainly a cause that affects the drain but damages the gate area is something that fits here. Seems like a rare failure, but certainly a possible...

Today I had a curious problem, a power mosfet that was good, after mounting it had a resistance gate source of few ohms. Source drain was ok, I have supply a large current gate source until it has opened. Then the mosfet worked correctly.

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https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/...rt-between-gate-and-drain.144584/post-1226839

 

Possibly static caused the original problem.
Now you have run a large current through the short to burn it out I doubt it will meet the original specification.