Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry did the honors, scoring into an empty net with just over a minute to go to seal his team’s 4-2 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Jarry said he was ‘pretty lucky’ to score.
“It’s pretty neat, honestly. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often,’ Jarry said. ‘There’s very few that have done it, so it’s definitely pretty cool. But honestly the win means more.”
According to the Penguins, Jarry is the first goalie in the team’s 56-season history to score a goal. He’s just the 14th different goalie to score in league history, per the Pens. The Boston Bruins’ Linus Ullmark was the last goalie to score in the NHL, getting a goal last February during his Vezina Trophy campaign.
“It was just kind of the perfect scenario,” Jarry, who also scored a goal during an AHL game in 2018, said. “It was coming in kind of slow and I was able to just get around it, and shoot as hard as I could.”
In addition to scoring, Jarry had a pretty good night when it comes to doing his normal job: he stopped 39 of the Lightning’s 41 shots. His teammates dug out of a 2-0 first-period deficit to take a 3-2 lead, which set the stage for Jarry’s magical moment.
Perhaps no surprise, Jarry was named the game’s first star.