Today in NHL History, Dec 28th

1918: Montreal Canadiens' Georges Vezina became the first NHL goalie to earn an assist, when teammate Newsy Lalonde picked up the puck after a Vezina save, skated the length of the ice, and scored. It came in a 6-3 win over Toronto.

1929: New York Rangers beat Ottawa Senators 3-1, in a Rangers' "home game" played in Atlantic City.

1935: Buzz' Boll scored his first career hat trick (and his only one with Toronto) in the Maple Leafs' 9-3 win over the NY Rangers.

1944: Montreal's Maurice Richard became the first player in NHL history to score eight points in one game. He scored five goals and added three assists when the Canadiens beat Detroit, 9-1.

1946: Montreal's Maurice Richard scored his 9th career hat trick and added an assist, and Toe Blake had two goals and two assists in the Canadiens 8-2 win against the Black Hawks, at the Forum.

1949: Edgar Laprade scored two goals and two assists and Tony Leswick had four assists to lead the Rangers to a 5-2 win against Chicago, in New York. Rangers won the game with four goals within a span of 2:57 during the final five minutes of the game.

1950: Metro Prystai scored two goals and two assists and Gordie Howe had five assists in the Red Wings' 8-1 win against Montreal, at the Olympia.

1958: Detroit's Alex Delvecchio scored a goal and added three assists as the Red Wings won 5-3 over the visiting Boston Bruins.

1960: Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque born in Montreal, Que. Bourque played in the NHL 1979-80 thru 2000-01 with Boston and Colorado.

1962: Red Sullivan replaced Muzz Patrick as coach of the New York Rangers, but Patrick continued as General Manager. Sullivan became the 12th coach in Rangers history.

1967: Gilles Tremblay scored the only hat trick of his NHL career and added an assist to lead the Canadiens to a 6-2 win against the Minnesota North Stars, in Montreal. Also in that game, Jean Beliveau had four assists to move past Maurice Richard into second place on the NHL's all time point scoring list (behind Gordie Howe) with 967 points.

1969: Red Wings' Garry Unger scored three goals (for his second career hat trick) to lead Detroit to a 5-3 win against the Oakland Seals, at the Olympia.....Boston's Bobby Orr scored a goal and added three assists as the Bruins won 5-4, at Philadelphia.

1974: Montreal's Guy Lafleur scored a goal and added three assists as the Canadiens won 7-2 over the Kansas City Scouts at the Forum.

1975: New York Rangers became first team in NHL history to face a touring Soviet hockey squad. The Soviet Army beat the Rangers 7-3 at M.S.G. Phil Esposito had a goal and two assists for New York.

1976: L.A. Kings' Marcel Dionne scored his 200th career NHL goal as Los Angeles lost 8-3 to the North Stars at Minnesota.

1977: Vancouver's Curt Ridley became the first NHL goalie to shut out a touring Soviet team when the Canucks beat Moscow Spartak 2-0. Rick Blight scored both goals for the Canucks.....Kings' Butch Goring played in his 540th NHL game to break Bob Berry's team record of 539 games. Los Angeles lost 4-3 to the Islanders, at the Forum.

1980: St. Louis Blues were outshot 37-18, and got only two shots in the final period but scored on both for a 3-2 win at Vancouver. Mike Liut made 35 saves.

1981: Rookie Tim Hunter became the first Calgary native to play in a game for the Flames. He picked up 7 penalty minutes in his NHL debut, a 7-4 home loss to the Flyers. Hunter & Glen Cochrane had minors in the second and majors in the final period.

1984: Mike Foligno began a team-record 8 game goal scoring streak in the Sabres 4-0 win over the visiting Winnipeg Jets. Tom Barrasso recorded the shutout.

1986: Calgary's Al MacInnis extended his team-record consecutive game assist streak to 9 games in the Flames' 4-1 win at Buffalo. MacInnis scored 16 assists during the 9 game streak, tying the consecutive game assist streak set by Kent Nilsson in 1984.

1989: Blues' Paul MacLean scored his 300th NHL career goal when St. Louis lost 3-2 to the Islanders, at New York.

1990: Daren Puppa made 33 saves for his fourth NHL shutout as Buffalo won 5-0 over the Blackhawks, at the Aud.

1991: Vancouver's Igor Larionov scored his second career hat trick in the second period to lead the Canucks to a 3-2 win over the Sharks, at San Jose.

1992: Winnipeg Jets traded Ed Olczyk to the New York Rangers in exchange for Kris King and Tie Domi.

1993: John MacLean became the NJ Devils all-time scoring leader with a third-period goal in a 4-2 win over the visiting Hartford Whalers. MacLean's goal gave him 258 goals and 263 assists for 521 career points, one more than Kirk Muller.

1995: Mario Lemieux scored a goal and four assists, and Jaromir Jagr and Tomas Sandstrom each had two goals and two assists as Pittsburgh won 9-4 against the Hartford Whalers, at the Civic Arena. Penguins recorded the franchise's 900th win.

1996: Pittsburgh's rookie goalie Patrick Lalime recorded his second shutout in three starts, and improved his lifetime record to 6-0-1, as the Penguins won 2-0 over the visiting Buffalo Sabres. Mario Lemieux had a goal and an assist.

2000: Detroit Red Wings re-acquired veteran Igor Larionov from the Florida Panthers, in exchange for Yan Golbovsky.

2001: Toronto's Mat Sundin scored his 20th goal of the year (for the 12th straight season) and added an assist to give him 900 career NHL points. The milestone came in a 5-4 loss to the Thrashers in Atlanta.....Goaltender Fred Brathwaite recorded his 13th career shutout in the Blues 3-0 win over the visiting Montreal Canadiens.....Atlanta's Ray Ferraro scored to become the 66th player in NHL history to score 400 career goals; the milestone came in a 5-4 Thrashers win over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.

2002: Calgary Flames hired Darryl Sutter as their new head coach. Sutter had been out of work since Dec 1, when he was fired by the San Jose Sharks.....Scott Niedermayer became just the 2nd defenseman in NHL history (Brian Leetch) to get 7 regular-season overtime goals, when he scored with 49.5 seconds left in OT as the Devils outshot the visiting Washington Capitals 40-15 for a 2-1 victory.....Rookie Tyler Arnason scored his first career hat trick in the Blackhawks 3-3 tie against the Sharks at San Jose.


Be sure to log onto WWW.THESTITCH.US