It was a tense evening in the NHL with key points on the line for a few clubs looking to clinch a coveted ticket to the post-season dance.
With a slew of records broken and career-best totals lifted, here are a few things we learned around the league Wednesday.
Leafs piling up milestones like it’s no big deal
The Toronto Maple Leafs stacked up an absurd number of historic footnotes during their 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers. The cream of the crop was the franchise’s single-season wins record, which the 2017-18 squad upended by snagging a personal-best 46th win in their victory over Jonathan Huberdeau and Co. (a franchise-best 27th home win as well).
Here’s a quick run-through of the other fun facts Toronto offered up for the history buffs on Wednesday:
• With his 30th goal of the season, Auston Matthews became only the third player in Leafs history to start his career with back-to-back 30-goal campaigns for Toronto (following in the footsteps of Wendel Clark and Daniel Marois).
• That goal, scored during 5-on-5 action, was also the 60th even-strength tally posted by Matthews. No other NHLer has scored more even-strength tallies than the Leafs pivot since he entered the league. Only Connor McDavid has kept pace, scoring a similar 60 over that span, though the Edmonton Oilers captain did so in 20 more games.
• With teammate Nazem Kadri having tucked 30 goals under his belt as well, the two also became one of the most dangerous goal-scoring centremen pairs in team history.
• James van Riemsdyk got on the board as well, and in doing so, tallied both a career-high 35th goal of the season and the 200th goal of his career
• With a goal of his own, Patrick Marleau moved up one more rung on the all-time points ladder, tying legends Mike Bossy and Joe Nieuwendyk with 1,126 career points, good for 56th all-time.
• Bonus: The Panthers got in on the history-making action, too, as Vincent Trocheck‘s 70th point of the season lifted him and teammate Aleksander Barkov into rarified air in team history. With Barkov boasting 75 points himself, the Panthers find themselves with their first pair of 70-point players in nearly two decades.
Not bad for a Wednesday night.
Claude’s continuing his career year for Philly
Leading a Philadelphia Flyers squad that’s clawed through a tumultuous 2017-18 campaign, captain Claude Giroux has been revelation.
After seeing his numbers steadily decline following a pair of dominant efforts between 2011-13, Giroux has returned to top form this season, rediscovering the elite touch that once prompted future Hall of Famer Jaromir Jagr to dub him “little Mario Lemieux.”
Giroux reasserted 2017-18 as his comeback effort on Wednesday, crushing a one-timer to tally his 93rd point of the year — tying the career-best total he posted back in 2012.
He’s already topped his previous best assists total with 66 this season, and now sits just one shy in the goals department with 27 in the bag.
The Flyers have four regular season games remaining as they fight to hold on to their wild card spot, so expect Giroux to keep climbing and cement this season as his career best before all is said and done.
Kuznetsov quietly dominating for the Capitals
While Alex Ovechkin continues to prove he’s one of history’s finest goal-scorers, young teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov has sheepishly posted one of the finest efforts of his career in the Great Eight’s shadow.
Kuznetsov’s best season to date came during his breakout 2015-16 effort, when he posted 20 goals and 77 points to surprisingly lead the Caps in scoring. He took a step back one year later, though, watching those totals drop to 19 and 59, respectively.
But the smooth-skating pivot has been on his game this season, and he’s been a handful as of late, amassing 11 points over his past five games coming into Wednesday’s tilt with the Rangers. With an assist and the overtime winner against New York, Kuznetsov tied that career-best 77-point mark, while reaching the 25-goal plateau for the first time.
The Caps still have a handful of games left on their schedule, but Kuznetsov appears on track to finish with his first point-per-game season as he reaches the next level in Washington.
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