Today in NHL History, March 28th

1922: Toronto beat Vancouver Millionaires 5-1 in Game Five of the Finals, to become the 1922 Stanley Cup Champions. Babe Dye scored four goals for the Toronto St. Pats.

1929: Chicago Stadium opened its doors for the first time, with a boxing match.....Bruins and Rangers clashed in the first NHL Stanley Cup Final series between two U.S. based teams. Boston won 2-0, then won again 2-1 the next night to win their first championship. Rookie Tiny Thompson got his third career playoff shutout.

1937: Dave "Sweeney "Schriner and Nels Stewart scored three goals each to lead the NY Americans to a 9-4 win over the Black Hawks, in New York. Paul Thompson added a hat trick for Chicago.

1944: Doug Bentley became the first player in Black Hawks' history to score a hat trick in the playoffs. The three goals (and two assists) came in a 7-1 win over Detroit. Bentley followed it up with three more goals two days later against the Red Wings.

1954: Montreal's Emile Bouchard scored twice to become the NHL's all-time playoff point scorer among defensemen, as the Canadiens won 4-3 at Boston, in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Semi-Finals

1967: Chicago's Stan Mikita set an NHL record for most assists in a season, when he picked up #60 in a 7-2 win over the visiting Detroit Red Wings. Mikita broke his own record of 59 set in 1964-65. Also in that game, Detroit's Gordie Howe became the first player in NHL history to score 1,500 career points, when he picked up an assist in his 1,396th career game.

1968: Philadelphia's rookie goaltender Doug Favell led the Flyers to a 2-0 shutout over St. Louis at a Flyers' "home game" at the Colisee in Quebec City. It was the 4th shutout of Favell's NHL career.

1973: Boston's Phil Esposito scored four goals and added an assist in a 6-3 Bruins' win over the Rangers, at New York. It was the 20th hat trick of Esposito's NHL career.

1974: Islanders' rookie defenseman Denis Potvin scored to set an NHL record for most goals by a rookie defenseman, as the Islanders lost 4-1 at Los Angeles. Potvin's 16th of the year broke the record of 15 set by Montreal's Guy Lapointe in 1970-71.....Los Angeles Kings beat the Islanders 4-1 to clinch the playoffs for the first time in five seasons. Butch Goring had two goals, two assists, and his first penalty in a year!

1975: Washington recorded the only road victory in their first season, when Nelson Pyatt's 2 third period goals gave them a 5-3 win at Oakland. The win ended their NHL-record 37 game road losing streak. They finished the year 1-39-0 on the road.

1978: Harvey Bennett scored four goals (including his first career hat trick) to lead the Minnesota North Stars to a 9-4 win over Vancouver at the Met Center.....Goaltender Ron Low recorded his third career shutout (and his only one with Detroit) in the Red Wings 7-0 win over the Sabres at the Olympia. Reed Larson scored a goal and four assists and rookie Paul Woods had a goal and two assists.

1980: Hartford's Blaine Stoughton became the first member of the Whalers to score 50 goals in an NHL season and second player (Bobby Hull was the other) to score 50 in both the WHA and NHL. #50 came in a 4-4 tie at Vancouver.

1982: Wayne Gretzky scored his 92nd goal of the season, an NHL record, as the Oilers won 6-2 at Los Angeles. Also in that game, Edmonton's Mark Messier and Dave Lumley scored within 24 seconds of the opening face off to set an NHL record for fastest two goals from the start of a game.

1987: Calgary's Joe Mullen was awarded a penalty shot against the Kings. Mullen scored against Al Jensen, but the goal was then disallowed --- Mullen had scored with an illegally curved stick! Flames won 4-3 at Los Angeles.....Detroit Red Wings got their first win in Philadelphia in 16 years (0-23-6) 5-1 over the Flyers. Greg Hanlon stopped 30 shots and was named the top star.

1988: Minnesota's Dino Ciccarelli scored twice to give him 300 goals in his NHL career as the North Stars tied 7-7 with the visiting Chicago Blackhawks.

1990: Islanders scored five goals in the final period to beat Toronto 6-3, in coach Al Arbour's 1,277th regular season game behind the bench. The game moved Arbour past Scotty Bowman into second place on the all time list behind Dick Irvin (1,437).

1991: Wayne Gretzky tied a Kings record (set by Bernie Nicholls in 1984-85) by scoring a point in his 25th straight game, a 6-5 win over the visiting Minnesota North Stars.....Al MacInnis scored a goal and three assists in the first period, to reach the 100 point mark in the Flames' 4-4 tie against Edmonton. MacInnis became the 4th defenseman in NHL history (and 1st in Flames history) to score 100 points in a season.....Goaltender Don Beaupre recorded his 10th career shutout as Washington won 3-0 at Philadelphia.

1992: Paul Ranheim had a goal and an assist, playing in his 200th career game as the Flames extended their home undefeated streak against Minnesota to 9 straight games (7-0-2), with a 4-3 win over the North Stars.....Kevin Stevens set an NHL record for left wingers, with his 68th assist of the season, in the Penguins' 6-3 win over Montreal. Stevens broke the old mark of 67 set by Mats Naslund in 1985-86.

1993: Alexei Zhamnov scored a goal to make the Winnipeg Jets the first team in NHL history with four 20-goal rookies. Zhamnov joined Teemu Selanne, Evgeny Davydov and Keith Tkachuk. Jets tied 3-3 with the visiting Los Angeles Kings.....Ottawa Senators' veteran Laurie Boschman appeared in his 1,000th NHL game, a 3-1 loss at Buffalo

1995: Playing in his 1,000th regular season game, Detroit's Dino Ciccarelli picked up two assists. Ciccarelli became the 100th player in NHL history to reach the mark as the Red Wings won 6-4 over the visiting Mighty Ducks.

1996: Jaromir Jagr scored to make the Penguins the second team in NHL history to have teammates each with 60 or more goals in the same season. Jagr's 60th of the year came in a 3-2 win over the Panthers in Florida. Mario Lemieux finished the season with 69 goals.....Vancouver Canucks fired head coach Rick Ley, with six games remaining in the Canucks' schedule. General Manager Pat Quinn was announced as the replacement behind the bench.

1998: NHL linesman Gerard Gauthier officiated his 2,000th game as the Canadiens won 8-2 against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning. Gauthier became only the second official in NHL history to reach this milestone, joining Ray Scapinello.

1999: Colorado's Patrick Roy became the NHL's all-time winningest goaltender (regular season plus playoffs) when his 7-2 win over the visiting L.A. Kings gave him 506 career wins. He moved ahead of Jacques Plante, who retired with 505 combined wins.....Florida's Mark Parrish scored twice to become the first rookie to reach the 20-goal milestone in the 1998-99 season as the Panthers tied 2-2 at New Jersey.

2000: New York Rangers (struggling at 1-8-1 in their previous 10 games) fired president and GM Neil Smith and head coach John Muckler. Assistant coach John Tortorella took over as interim head coach (for the final 4 games of the season).....Tampa Bay became the second team in NHL history to lose 50 games for three straight seasons, when they dropped their 50th of the 1999-2000 season, 4-2 to the Dallas Stars. The Lightning tied the mark set by Pittsburgh 1982-83 thru 1984-85.

2001: Minnesota Wild had their 39th straight sellout crowd (18,568 in a 2-0 loss to Phoexnis) to set an attendance record for a first year expansion team. They broke the mark of 705,389 set in 1999-2000 by the Atlanta Thrashers.