Martin Brodeur is one of two goaltenders who have scored one goal in the regular season and another one in the playoffs.

After a seven-year hiatus, Chris Osgood was the first goaltender to score a goal since Ron Hextall did so in the 1989 playoffs.

Jose Theodore, then playing for the Montreal Canadiens, scored a goal and shutout in a 3–0 against the New York Islanders.

Evgeni Nabokov was the first non-North American goaltender to score a goal, and the last to score a goal by directly shooting it into the net.

Chris Mason is the latest NHL goaltender to have scored; he was credited with a goal in 2006.

There have been nine goaltenders who have scored a goal in a National Hockey League (NHL) game. Scoring a goal into the opposing team's net is challenging for goaltenders, since a goaltender only has a fair chance to score when the six-foot-wide net is empty. This assumes that the opposing goaltender does not commit a blunder, by letting the puck, which would have lost most of its speed after traveling the length the ice; all NHL goaltenders who have scored a goal by shooting the puck have done so with an empty net. They also have to shoot from the other end of the rink with the correct trajectory and speed to beat the defenders. A goaltender cannot cross the centre red line; thus, they cannot get close enough to the opposing goaltender to have a chance to score when the net is not empty.

Chris Mason accomplished this feat most recently in 2006, when he was credited with a goal after he was the last player on his team to touch the puck before his opponents inadvertently put the puck into their own net. The most recent goaltender to have scored a goal by deliberately shooting the puck into his opponents' net was Evgeni Nabokov, in 2002.

[edit] History

Billy Smith, in the 1979–80 season, was the first goaltender to be credited with a goal; he was the last player to touch the puck before an opposing player put the puck into his own empty net.^[1] However, the participation of goaltenders in offense began long before this event. The first goaltender credited with an assist was Georges Vezina in the 1917–18 season, after a puck rebounded off his leg pad to a teammate who skated the length of the ice to score.^[2] In the 1935–36 season, Tiny Thompson became the first goaltender to gain an assist after making an intentional pass.^[3] During the Second World War, while playing for the All-Star Royal Canadian Army team, NHL goaltender Chuck Rayner carried the puck down the ice and beat the opposing goaltender; in the NHL, he made numerous unsuccessful attempts to duplicate this feat.^[4]

Goaltenders were also involved in the offense in the early days of ice hockey. Hall of Fame goaltender Paddy Moran was beaten once by the opposing team's goaltender, though not in the NHL. The Montreal Star reported that poor officiating resulted in only the goaltenders left on the ice; Fred Brophy, the opposing goaltender, and Moran both exchanged scoring attempts, before Brophy beat Moran, while the latter and most of the spectators "convulsed in laughter".^[5] The first goaltender to score a goal by intentionally shooting the puck into the opponent's net was the Philadelphia Flyers' Ron Hextall, who, on December 8, 1987, scored in an empty net after Boston pulled their goaltender, Rejean Lemelin, for a sixth attacker late in the third period.^[6]

Of the eleven goals scored by NHL goaltenders, six were shot into the opposing team's net by the goaltender. There have been two goaltenders that have scored and earned a shutout in the same game. Damian Rhodes, playing for the Ottawa Senators, was credited with a goal in a 6–0 win over the New Jersey Devils on January 2, 1999, and Jose Theodore, playing for the Montreal Canadiens, shot the puck into the New York Islanders' empty net in a 3–0 victory on January 2, 2001.^[7]

In addition to being the first goaltender to be credited with a goal, Billy Smith was the only goaltender to have lost the game in which he was credited with or had scored a goal.^[7] Of the nine goaltenders that have scored, two—Ron Hextall and Martin Brodeur—have scored twice. Hextall and Brodeur both scored in a playoff game as well as a regular season game.^[7] Ron Hextall's second goal is the only goal scored by a goaltender while his team was short handed,^[8] and Evgeni Nabokov's goal is the only one that was scored on a power play.^[9] Martin Brodeur's second goal was an own goal by the other team; however, because Brodeur was the last opposing player to touch the puck, he received credit for the goal. It is the only game-winning goal scored by a goaltender.^[10]

[edit] Scorers

Key

[edit] See also

• List of football goalscoring goalkeepers

[edit] References

General

Specific