A certain Finnish scorer continued his torrid scoring pace, the league’s hottest player finally cooled down and a one-time, fourth-line pest continued his clutch streak.
Here are five things we learned in the NHL on Thursday night.
Laine ties Crosby
What do Patrik Laine and Sidney Crosby have in common? They both scored 75 goals while they were still a teenager.
The two are tied for fifth all time among goals scored before reaching the age of 20, behind Brian Bellows (76), Wayne Gretzky (76), Dale Hawerchuk (85) and Jimmy Carson (92), per NHL Public Relations on Twitter.
Laine turns 20 on April 19.
The goal came in the first period of the Winnipeg Jets’s game against the New Jersey Devils when Laine tucked in his 39th of the year. That puts him one goal back of Alex Ovechkin, who leads the league.
Laine has been scoring at an incredible rate over his past 10 games. He has lit the lamp 14 times in that span, only failing to score in one, and is on a four-game scoring streak.
The Hall streak is over
Devils forward Taylor Hall has held the entire league’s attention in 2018 by going on a 26-game point streak.
On Thursday night, that streak came to an end.
Hall failed to register a point for the first time in 2018. Sure, he missed a couple of games dealing with an injury, but he compiled a personal point streak consisting of 37 points and an official point streak of 19 games – the longest in Devils franchise history.
Hellebuyck ranks as franchise best
Sticking with this Jets-Devils game, Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck picked up his 35th win of the season, giving him the most wins by a Jets/Thrashers goalie.
Hellebuyck is in the midst of a terrific season with a 35-10-8 record, a .923 save percentage and a 2.39 goals-against average. The 24-year-old has worked his way into the Vezina conversation as he sits third in wins, fourth in save percentage among goalies who have played at least 50 games and second in goals-against average (also among goalies with at least 50 games).
Marchand comes up clutch … again
Brad Marchand came up clutch with 22 seconds left and scored the game-winning goal in the Boston Bruins’ game against the Philadelphia Flyers. This was the third straight game Marchand notched the game-winning goal.
Marchand became the first player to score three consecutive winning goals for the Bruins since Tyler Seguin did so back in 2011.
The Halifax native has nine points in his last four games and has been doing it all without arguably the Bruins’ best player in Patrice Bergeron, who has been out with an injury since Feb. 25.
Luongo adds to legacy
Thirty-eight-year-old Roberto Luongo blanked the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday to pick up his 75th career shutout.
That puts him one shutout short of tying Tony Esposito and Ed Belfour for a three-way tie for ninth all time.
The Panthers goalie has had a terrific year when healthy. In 24 games, he has a 2.50 goals-against average and a sparkling .930 save percentage, with a pair of shutouts to boot.
[relatedlinks]
