Alex Ovechkin made hockey history this spring when he broke the all-time NHL goals record against, but he wasn\u2019t the highest scorer in the milestone game. That honor went to New York Islanders rookie Marc Gatcomb, a fourth-line winger playing just his 33rd game in the league. Gatcomb scored a pair of goals in that game, bookending Ovechkin\u2019s record-breaking tally \u2014 a feat that would make him the hero of nearly any other contest.<\/p>\n
A longtime minor-leaguer who made his NHL debut in January, Gatcomb\u2019s trajectory has had little in common with Ovechkin\u2019s. He scored nine points (8g, 1a) in 38 games for New York last season, with the only multi-point game of his career coming on that fateful day against the Capitals. But now, he\u2019s become a small part of hockey history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely something I\u2019ll always remember for the rest of my life,\u201d he said at the NHLPA Rookie Showcase on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a record that a lot of people thought wasn\u2019t achievable, and he did it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut just to be part of that game is pretty special. It was pretty cool seeing him break the record. I\u2019ve never heard a rink so loud in my life. And when he scored, seeing him dive across the ice was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Months later, Gatcomb still struggled to explain what that moment meant to him. Just making the NHL had once seemed out of his reach: he was a junior in college before his coach suggested he could have an NHL future. If you\u2019d told him he\u2019d one day witness Ovechkin break the all-time record \u2014 let alone outscore him in that game \u2014 he\u2019d have assumed you were joking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably would have laughed when I was 20,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something I would have never dreamed of. And to put it into words is kind of hard, because it\u2019s just a pretty cool moment for hockey and myself, personally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gatcomb, like so many of the players on the ice for that game, held onto a souvenir of the milestone. His wasn\u2019t particularly flashy \u2014 several copies of the score sheet \u2014 and he hadn\u2019t gotten it signed, but it showed his name and Ovechkin\u2019s side by side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grabbed a couple score sheets,\u201d he said. \u201cTo see my name on there is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gatcomb\u2019s multi-goal game against the Capitals didn\u2019t make much of a splash: the Islanders were already seven points out of a playoff spot beforehand, and the final score mattered little compared to Ovechkin reaching the summit. Still, Gatcomb\u2019s name will live on as a piece of trivia for hockey fans, and his performance will live on as a highlight in his memory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin made hockey history this spring when he broke the all-time NHL goals record against, but he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-132172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}