Early in the second period in a game two weeks ago against Moscow, the Hussars worked the puck around the Maniacs’ zone while on the powerplay. Aaron Ekblad had it, contemplated bouncing the puck off the boards to Petr Vrana on the left wing, but instead made a D-to-D pass to Maxim Chudinov, who already had a quick pass to Bo Horvat in mind. Horvat collected the pass and whipped it on net, through Jake Oettinger’s 5 hole, and Minsk had an early 2-0 lead. The goal, which was Horvat’s 37th of the year, seemed relatively unimportant at the time. There wasn’t a ton of celebrating. Moscow scored in the second period, but Minsk added a couple in the third to win 4-1. That meant Horvat’s first-period goal was the game winner. It also meant it was his 14th Game Winning Goal (GWG) of Season 13 and a brand new record for the EURO League.
The previous record was 13 GWGs, set in Season 6 by Horvat’s former Minsk teammate Milan Lucic. Those were the days when Horvat was more a member of the Vitebsk Bears farm club than the big club in Minsk. Horvat played in just 3 games for Minsk that season after just 5 the season before. But in Season 7, a season after Lucic set the record, Horvat became a full-time Hussar and in the last 7 seasons, he’s missed just 3 games. Was he always a clutch goal scorer? No. Before scoring 14 GWGs this season, he had scored a total of 13 in his career and 4 was his season high.
Horvat’s record may not be the only one written into the record book once Season 13 comes to a close in a couple of weeks. Some teams – Minsk included – have 5 games remaining while Belfast has 9. Speaking of Belfast, if Giants defenseman Alex Pietrangelo doesn’t sustain an injury early in a game, he could tie the amazing record for average ice time. In Season 2, London defenseman Jake Gardiner played 31 minutes per game over the course of an entire season. Pietrangelo, who was the 13th player taken in the league’s initial draft, is 33 years old now but is playing 31 minutes per game. That’s 5 minutes per game higher than his previous highest workload. He should also come close to record of most blocked shots in a season, and teammate Nathan MacKinnon will come close to setting the record for most shots on goal, although both would need to keep up torrid paces over their remaining games.
There aren’t any other individual records that are in danger of being tied or broken but the team record for most goals allowed in a season could be set by Prague. Going into Tuesday night’s game, we calculated that if the Spartans continue to give up goals at their season rate of 4.37 per game, they will be right at the record that Frankfurt set in Season 1. But holding powerful Helsinki to 3 goals in a 5-3 win on Tuesday might have been enough to keep them out of the record books.
The Record Book page
