Top First Goals In NHL History

Watching this amazing goal from Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Tyler Bozak in his first NHL regular season game last night got me thinking.  What were some of the nicest first goals in NHL history?

Many think about the legends of hockey – Gretzky, Yzerman, Hull, Howe -  and where theirs stack up in “unbelievable-ness”, when really, it’s the lesser knowns, like Bozak, that most of the time end up with the highlight reel goals.

The first NHL goal ever was – according to many sources – scored by Dave Ritchie of the Montreal Wanderers (vs. Ottawa) on December 19th, 1917.  However, there all also reports that Joe Malone of the Canadiens (vs. Toronto) scored the first goal that same evening.  The reports are misconstrued due to time keeping issues; there is no record of when the games started that night.

Regardless, one of these gentlemen scored the first goal ever, but something tells me that either weren’t as pretty as the ten in the following list.

With that, I present OIH’s Top Ten first goals in NHL history.

10) Alex Ovechkin – A sign of things to come from the Caps sniper

9) Artem Anisimov – Tic, Tac, Toe – finish.

8) James van Riemsdyk – Sweet move on the breakaway, backhand five-hole

7) Scott Niedermeyer – Great end-to-end, individual effort.

6) Matt Gilroy – Nice saucer pass leads to slick backhand finish from the rookie

5) Jonathan Toews – Fends off the defender for the breakaway, and roofs it.

4) Mario Lemieux – First goal, first shift, first NHL game.  ‘Nuff said

3) Sean Bergenheim – A outside-inside, shorthanded dangle

2) Luc Robitaille – “Lucky Luc” with the first of an amazing career.  Assisted by Marcel Dionne

1) Ville Leino – Spin’o'rama!
-

Honorable Mentions

Brendan Shanahan – For the after-goal story

Nikolai Zherdev – Superman