A rare Blackhawks win, a trio of milestones, and a wild finish in Calgary.
Here are four things we learned in the NHL Wednesday night.
Bryan Rust picks the perfect game to steal the show
Prior to Wednesday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks, Bryan Rust had one goal this season. By the time he left the Windy City he had four. However, his hat trick — the second of his career and the Penguins’ fourth as a team over the last nine games — wasn’t enough to lift Pittsburgh over Chicago, as the Penguins fell to the league’s worst team 6-3.
That’s definitely not the outcome Rust wanted. But good stories aren’t supposed to be perfect and, regardless of the final score, Rust couldn’t have picked a better night to have a career-game. It was the final stop on the Penguins’ annual “Dads Trip”, a tradition in which the fathers of players accompany the team on a road trip. Scoring a hat trick is special. Scoring one with your dad in attendance? That’s bucket list material.
For the Penguins, losing a mid-December game to Chicago isn’t cause to sound any kind of alarm. There is a lot of season left. They still have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and, barring some unforeseen turn of events, that should be enough to keep them in the playoff picture. But the Blackhawks do represent a cautionary tale.
Chicago last won the Stanley Cup just four seasons ago in 2014-15. Have four years ever seemed so far away? One day Crosby and Malkin won’t be enough just as Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane aren’t enough now. The lesson in it all is simple: don’t take greatness for granted, because the ride is always over too soon.
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Wait hold on, Calgary did what now?
On a night that saw Anaheim return to their Disney roots by hosting a Star Wars night, it was the Calgary Flames who penned a Hollywood ending to their game.
Trailing by two against the Philadelphia Flyers with under two minutes left, the game appeared — to any sensible person — to be over. No one on the Flames cared about being sensible.
With their net empty and 1:08 remaining, Rasmus Andersson scored for Calgary to cut the lead to one. But surely it wouldn’t get closer than that, right? Because no team would allow two goals in under two minutes to steal defeat from the jaws’ of victory, right? Wrong. Philly would. Sean Monahan scored with just seven seconds remaining in regulation and then Johnny Gaudreau capped off the comeback in overtime to give Calgary their seventh win this season when trailing in the third period.
Star Wars and the Squared Circle
Both the Anaheim Ducks and New York Islanders hosted event nights on Wednesday, themed after Star Wars and wrestling respectively.
WWE stars Mick Foley, Sergeant Slaughter, and Bobby Roode were in attendance for “Islesmania” at the Barclays Center in New York — a nod to the iconic Wrestlemania event that serves as pro-wrestling’s Super Bowl.
Throughout his wrestling career Foley was no stranger to strange theatrics. His go to routine, after all, was having conversations with a sock puppet named Mr. Socko. If ever a night were going to get weird, it should have been this one.
#ISLESMANIA@WWE @_SgtSlaughter @RealMickFoley @REALBobbyRoode pic.twitter.com/Sp4DME78zl
— Barclays Center (@barclayscenter) December 13, 2018
Except that didn’t happen. Apart from a 15 minute delay in between the second and third periods, the game was a low-scoring, low-chance affair, that was anything but bizarre.
In Anaheim, the best and worst part of Star Wars night had nothing to do with the game itself, but rather, it was the team’s Twitter account going all in on the concept. The results were mixed, to be sure:
But whether you laughed at them or with them, #HockeyTwitter is a better place when it knows it’s supposed to be fun.
Milestones come in threes
One night after Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith made history for becoming the first defensemen duo to play 1,000 games together, Seabrook hit another milestone. Wednesday’s game against the Penguins marked his 1,037th game as a Blackhawk — the second most in franchise history. He wasn’t alone in celebrating a career achievement either, a pair of captains joined him in crossing off achievements.
Jonathan Toews reached the 700 point plateau on a fittingly understated empty net goal that sealed the game for Chicago, and Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf recorded his 900th point on an assist in the second period of the Ducks’ 3-2 loss against the Dallas Stars.
