FeaturedThis Day In Hockey History

This Day in Hockey History – December 12

Today in hockey history, two teams cooperate to set a record, a goal scorer reaches a milestone quickly, a team does something for just the third time in its history, and a player carries his team to victory.

hockey history

December 12, 1963 – In a 6-4 Canadiens win over the Rangers, the competitors set a record for the fastest two goals by two teams: 18 seconds! Montreal’s Dave Balon and Gilles Tremblay, and New York’s Camille Henry “teamed up” in the first period to record the feat.

December 12, 1971 – Boston’s Phil Esposito scored his 300th career NHL goal in a 4-2 loss to the Oakland Seals, making him the second-fastest player to reach that milestone, behind Maurice Richard (he was also just the 16th to reach that mark). That was, of course, before Gretzky had a chance to embarrass them both.

December 12, 1997 – Kelly Hrudey made 24 saves to lead his Sharks to a 1-0 shutout at Dallas. The “at Dallas” part is actually pretty important, as it was just the third road shutout in team history. And just a friendly reminder: the Sharks joined the league in 1991, so it took them a few months into their seventh season to record three road shutouts. As a rough estimate, that’s about 250 games in which they recorded only three shutouts!

December 12, 2000 – J.P. Dumont scored a hat trick, which just happened to be every goal scored in the game, as his Sabres beat the Bruins 3-0. He had actually scored the Sabres previous two goals as well, meaning he scored five consecutive Buffalo goals. Sort of related: on November 14 that year, about a month prior, Ryan Smith became first player to score every goal in two separate 3-0 games.

 

Source: Hockey Hall of Fame

Scott Finger
Scott is the former managing editor at Hooked on Hockey Magazine. He loves hockey, writing, and writing about hockey. He graduated from Roger Williams University in 2011 with a useless degree in Media Communications (concentrating in Journalism). Being a New York Rangers fan (and NY Giants and Mets fan) living in Boston is very uncomfortable for him, and it'll be awkward trying to celebrate a Rangers Cup win in the streets when they inevitably win sometime in the next 100 years. He also likes long walks on the beach.
Back to top button