Between Ovechkin’s special night, Luongo passing Sawchuk, and Kopitar eclipsing Gretzky in Kings’ lore, there were quite a few milestone achievements on Monday night in the NHL.
Nevertheless, the highlight of the night might have been Byfuglien’s hit on Matthew Tkachuk and Kris Versteeg‘s half-hearted attempt at redemption in the video attached above.
Here are three things we learned.
Big Buff steps up
No Laine, no problem for the Winnipeg Jets.
Manitoba’s team will be without its super rookie for quite some time after the Finn was diagnosed with a concussion on Sunday, but the Jets got on just fine in Calgary on Monday.
Connor Hellebuyck was perfect, stopping all 28 shots he faced for his fourth career shutout (Winnipeg could desperately use a hot goalie right now), but the team also got a boost from the fine play of one of its veterans.
Dustin Byfuglien was all over the ice against the Flames, punishing his opponents, and chipping in with some offence as well.
That was just the sixth goal of 2016-17 for Byfuglien, who’s averaged 19 a year over the past three seasons.
The 31-year-old has game-breaking talent, which was on display through 28:41 on Monday, and was on the ice for both Winnipeg goals.
More nights like that would surely be welcomed by head coach Paul Maurice.
Luongo passes Sawchuk in style
Roberto Luongo tied Terry Sawchuk on the NHL’s all-time list with win No. 447 on Dec. 20 against Buffalo.
Twenty days, an upper-body injury, and maybe an extra quarter-inch on Jagr’s mullet later, Luongo earned himself win No. 448 with a shutout over the New Jersey Devils.
His spotless performance gave him sole possession of fifth place among all goalies to ever play in the NHL.
Luongo’s next mark would be Curtis Joseph (454 wins), and the 37-year-old could quite possibly pass Cujo by the end of the month.
While Martin Brodeur (691) and Patrick Roy (551) appear safe atop the all-time leader board, it’s likely that Luongo will retire ahead of Ed Belfour (484) with the third-most wins of any netminder in league history.
Not bad considering he spent the first five seasons of his career with a mediocre Panthers team.
Oh, and the goalie he out-dueled to pass Sawchuk?
Cory Schneider, of course.
Get ready for game time with over 100 menu items delivered right to your door. Click here to learn more.
Stars, Kings make poor attempts at stopping pucks
This, uh, might not come as a shock to anyone but it seems the Dallas Stars could use a quality goaltender.
And at least for one night, you could say the same with regards to the Los Angeles Kings.
This game was actually pretty close heading into the third – the Stars carried a 3-1 lead – before the floodgates opened.
Dustin Brown scored on the power play to cut L.A.’s deficit in half, but Devin Shore answered 43 seconds later.
Only 1:21 later, Anze Kopitar fired one up high on Kari Lehtonen, and less then a minute after that, Drew Doughty tied the game with a power-play marker of his own.
Doughty’s goal ended Lehtonen’s night, after the Finn completely misread the incoming shot.
After Antti Niemi came in, the game seemed poised to go a full minute and a half without a goal.
And it would have, too, if it wasn’t for that meddling Jiri Hudler.
Hudler took advantage of Peter Budaj‘s mishap behind the Kings net to score his first of the season and give the Stars the lead again just 1:27 after the Doughty marker.
Darryl Sutter then brought in Jeff Zatkoff for Budaj and things finally calmed down, save for Patrick Sharp‘s empty-netter to make it 6-4.
It was the Stars’ first win of 2017 and it came in the most Dallas way possible.
