Milestone comes on 100th anniversary of NHL's opening night
ByNHL.com @NHLdotcom
The Toronto Maple Leafs celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first NHL game by scoring the 20,000th goal in their franchise history Tuesday.
The milestone goal came when forward James van Riemsdyk scored on the power play at 10:34 of the first period to give the Maple Leafs a 3-1 lead against the Carolina Hurricanes in the Next Century Game at Air Canada Centre. The game came exactly 100 years after the Toronto Arenas lost 10-9 to the Montreal Wanderers in one of two games played on the NHL's first night. RELATED: [Maple Leafs celebrate 100th anniversary by defeating Hurricanes] The Arenas scored 172 goals before being renamed the Toronto St. Patricks in 1919. The St. Patricks scored 724 goals before the franchise was renamed the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927. The goal by van Riemsdyk was the 19,104th (including shootout-deciding goals) scored by the Maple Leafs. Goal No. 20,001 came less than three minutes later, when Tyler Bozak scored at 13:28 of the first period to give the Maple Leafs a 4-1 lead. Toronto won 8-1.
