an impact on the game that his No 99 was retired throughout the NHL Today’s NHL features some amazing goal scorers too Alex Ovechkin broke into the league with a 52-goal season for the Washington Capitals in 2005 06 He hasn’t slowed down since Ovechkin has led the NHL in goals six times He scored his 500th career goal in January 2016 Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos scored his 300th career goal one month later At age 26 Stamkos was the ninth-youngest player to reach 300 in NHL history The leading goal scorer in the NHL wins the Richard Trophy It is named for Montreal Canadiens great Maurice Rocket Richard In 1944 45 he was the first NHL player to score 50 goals in a season Some of the biggest goals in NHL history are overtime The term lighting the lamp refers to the red light behind the net that signals a goal 8
Steven Stamkos right celebrates one of his many goals for the Tampa Bay Lightning playoff goals NHL playoff games go to sudden-death overtime if the score is tied after three periods That means the next goal wins Teams have clinched the Stanley Cup with an overtime goal 17 times through 2016 9
2 BORN IN CANADA Hockey is a pretty simple game on the surface Two teams try to get an object into their opponent’s goal using a stick This could describe many games played throughout history And hockey descended from many of them Similar ice games were played in Europe as far back as the 1600s When Europeans came to North America they took note of Native American games One was an early version of lacrosse These games eventually led to what we now call field hockey And that game made its way to the ice A hockey game on the campus of McGill University during the 1884 Winter Carnival Hockey Tournament in Montreal 10 10
