On October 11, 1953, in a game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Olympia in Detroit, Gordie Howe assisted on a Red Kelly goal to open the scoring, scored a goal of his own on a power play to give the Wings a 2-0 lead, and then, less than a minute after he scored his goal, he squared off with Toronto’s Fernie Flaman and took a five-minute major for fighting. It was the first of what would earn the name “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” – a goal, and assist, and a fight – in his career. It was an amazingly efficient disposal of the three components, Howe recording all three in the first period of a 4-0 win.
You might think it was the first of many for Howe in his long, legendary career. You would be wrong. He posted only one other “GHHT” in his career, recording a goal, a pair of assists, and a fight (against Ted “Teeder” Kennedy) against the Leafs once more in a 6-1 win in Detroit on March 21, 1954.
This being a look back at some of the interesting tidbits of Washington Capitals history, we wondered about the history of GHHTs in Caps history. Let’s take a look…
— Dennis Maruk (4)
— Mike Gartner (3)
— Kevin Hatcher (3)
— Tom Rowe (3)
— Ryan Walter (3)
— Bengt-Ake Gustafsson (2)
— Bill Riley (2)
— Scott Stevens (2)
— Bob Kelly
— Troy Brouwer
— Bob Carpenter
— Jason Chimera
— Ben Clymer
— Lou Franceschetti
— Bob Girard
— Jeff Halpern
— Alan Haworth
— Dmitri Khristich
— Mike Knuble
— Steve Konowalchuk
— Bill Lesuk
— Tyler Lewington
— Alan May
— Paul Mulvey
— Robert Picard
— Jean Pronovost
— Blair Stewart
— Chris Valentine
— Darren Veitch
— Bengt-Ake Gustafsson (March 13, 1982; in a 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers)
— Alan Haworth (March 24, 1984; in a 6-0 win over Pittsburgh)
— Jeff Halpern (February 7, 2001; in a 3-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche)
— Mike Knuble (February 7, 2010; in a 5-4 overtime win over Pittsburgh)
— Troy Brouwer (December 7, 2011; in a 5-3 win over the Ottawa Senators)… with highlights (and Brouwer gets a decisive victory in this bout on our scorecard):
And there you have it, a look back at one of the more interesting story lines in Capitals history.