The milestone marker wasn't the typical goal we're used to seeing from Stamkos but was just as beautiful nonetheless. Ryan McDonagh lined up a shot from the left point and tried to squeeze the puck on target through traffic in front of the net. Stamkos was one of those bodies battling for positioning and was able to outmuscle his defender to get a stick on McDonagh's shot and tip it past Coyotes goaltender Darcy Kuemper at 6:54 of the opening period. Goal No. 384 came with Rick Tocchet behind the Arizona bench as the Coyotes' head coach. Tocchet was Tampa Bay's head coach when Stamkos scored career goal No. 1 on October 30, 2008 at Buffalo.
Stamkos netted his 36th goal of the season, second most on the Bolts and tied for 11th most in the NHL. The Lightning captain has scored at least 25 goals in nine of his 11 seasons with Tampa Bay. The only seasons he didn't came during his rookie year in 2008-09 (23 goals) and an injury-plagued year in 2016-17 (9 goals) when he played just 17 games.
It took Lecavalier 1,037 games to score 383 goals.
Stamkos needed just 737.
"Steven is the best goal-scorer in Lightning history and now he has the record to prove it," Lecavalier said. "How he's gotten to 384 - all the adversity, scoring from all over the ice - and still managing to set the record in a relatively small number of games is remarkable and further establishes Stammer as one of the top goal-scorers in the history of the game. It's an honor to call him a friend and a teammate."
