Tony Tanti and Wayne Gretzky both scored in their seventh straight games to start the season on this night in 1983
Tony Tanti and Wayne Gretzky both scored in their seventh straight games to start the season on this night in 1983
Oct. 19, 1983 was a big night for the red goal lights at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
The Edmonton Oilers scored six unanswered goals in the third period to erase a 7-4 deficit and outgun the Vancouver Canucks 10-7.
The offense was spread out, with no player on either team managing to score more than twice. But it was a special night for two players in particular, as both Tony Tanti of Vancouver and Wayne Gretzky of Edmonton tallied to become only the fifth and sixth players in NHL history to collect a goal in seven consecutive games to start a season.
Tanti reached the mark first, connecting on a power play four minutes into the contest. He book-ended the first-period scoring with his league-leading 10th goal of the season with 26 seconds left in the frame.
Gretzky scored twice in the third period, both starting and capping the Oilers’ six-goal comeback against a beleaguered Richard Brodeur in the Canucks’ cage. The last goal was also his 10th of the campaign.
Tanti’s streak stopped here, as he was shut out in Vancouver’s next matchup, but Gretzky managed another goal the following night in Los Angeles to run his string to eight games before he too was blanked – coincidentally, against Tanti’s Canucks.
The NHL record for consecutive games with a goal to start a season is 14, set by Joe Malone of the Montreal Canadiens during the NHL’s inaugural campaign, 1917-18. That same campaign, Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators scored in 12 consecutive games and Newsy Lalonde of the Habs scored in eight straight. Lalonde then scored in nine straight to kick off the 1918-19 season.
After that, only Ken Hodge of the Boston Bruins had managed to score in seven consecutive games to begin a season, doing so in 1973-74. Since Tanti and Gretzky did it on the same night, Mike Bossy (10 games, in 1984), Mario Lemieux (12 games, in 1992), and Nikita Kucherov (seven games, in 2017) have also achieved the feat.