A hockey player from Nanaimo scored his first NHL goal, then proceeded to score his second and third, too, for a hat trick.
Dylan Coghlan accounted for all his team’s offence as his Vegas Golden Knights lost 4-3 to the Minnesota Wild on the road Wednesday night.
After the Wild scored 19 seconds into the game, Coghlan tied it up less than a minute and a half later. Nicolas Roy’s shot ricocheted off a defender into the slot, where Coghlan pounced for his his first NHL goal.
He added his second and third goals in the late stages of the third period to give his team a chance to try to come back in the game.
“I wish we could’ve got the win. That would have been the icing on the cake,” Coghlan told Associated Press after the game. “But I felt pretty good.”
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First, second and third career goals 🎩#VegasBorn | @Enterprise pic.twitter.com/NxsmyMbAZ6
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) March 11, 2021
According to the NHL, two other defenceman in league history score his first three career goals in the same game. Uli Hiemer of the New Jersey Devils accomplished the feat in 1984 and Joe Hall did it for the Montreal Canadiens in 1918.
Coghlan has played 12 games this season for the Golden Knights, who lead the NHL’s West Division with a 16-6-1 record.
Coghlan starred in the Nanaimo Minor Hockey Association and played one season of B.C. Major Midget League hockey with Nanaimo’s North Island Silvertips before moving on to the major junior level and beyond.
-with a file from Associated Press
Nanaimo's Dylan Coghlan is the 3rd defenceman to score his first 3 NHL goals in the same game. The 1st to do it was 'Bad' Joe Hall of the Montreal Canadiens in 1918. Hall died of the Spanish flu in 1919. (Stick tap to my colleague at the @CowichanCitizen for this bit of trivia.)
— Greg Sakaki (@BulletinSports) March 11, 2021
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