A player’s first career NHL hat trick is always going to special. So many of them never even get to score hat tricks in the first place; why wouldn’t you celebrate it? Two empty net goals being a part of it makes it no less special.
Ryan Hartman now has 10 goals on the season (and in his career, for that matter). Goals number nine and 10 were empty netters, and the Elias Sports Bureau tells us that doesn’t happen all that often:
Hartman’s hat trick is only the second in the NHL since 1990 that included two empty-net goals. The other was by Milan Michalek for Ottawa against Tampa Bay on March 6, 2012.
Hartman was born in 1994, so basically, it’s only happened one other time in his lifetime – and back then, he hadn’t even been drafted yet.
Not only that, though, but even natural hat tricks are pretty rare for Blackhawks rookies: Hartman is only the third to have ever scored one. The first was by Ed Litzenberger back in 1959; the second, Cliff Kroll in 1969.
Hartman has made himself a little part of both NHL and Blackhawks history with his first career hat trick – so here’s to any future hat tricks being just as cool.
(They all will be; by default, all hat tricks are cool.)