Maurice Richard's record had stood for 69 years, since the Montreal Canadiens' late, mighty "Rocket" beat Boston Bruins goalie Don Simmons three times in a span of 6:21 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at the Montreal Forum on April 6, 1957.
On Saturday at T-Mobile Arena, Vegas Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner toppled the incomparable Richard from the throne on which he sat for seven decades less a year, scoring three times in a 6:10 second-period barrage against Frederik Andersen of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Marner's historic night was only part of the remarkable plot, the Hurricanes roaring back from down 4-0 in Game 3 with four third-period goals, three coming in 39 seconds, before Vegas won 5-4 in double overtime. The Golden Knights are home to Carolina for Game 4 on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC) with a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series.
Having first getting an assist on a goal by Tomas Hertl, on his way to becoming the first NHL player with four points in a single Stanley Cup Final period, Marner wasn't done just yet with his Canadiens eraser. His 28th point of the Stanley Cup Playoffs broke by one the 55-year-old record of Frank Mahovlich for most by a player in his first season with a franchise.
The second goal of Maurice Richard's historic Stanley Cup Final hat trick as featured in Montreal Gazette editions of April 8, 1957.
Bound for his fifth of six Stanley Cup championships, Mahovlich arrived in Montreal in a trade from the Detroit Red Wings, the "Big M" dealt to the Canadiens for fellow forwards Mickey Redmond, Guy Charron and Bill Collins on Jan. 13, 1971. Stanley Cup title No. 6 for Mahovlich, his first four won with the 1960s Toronto Maple Leafs, would come in 1973.
Richard, then 35, lit up Simmons to the delight of a Forum crowd that thought it had seen everything from their beloved Rocket, adding a fourth goal in the Canadiens' 5-1 victory.
His lightning hat trick eclipsed the Stanley Cup Final record set by Red Wings legend Ted Lindsay, who scored three in a span of 11:27 during Game 2 on April 5, 1955, Detroit headed for a seven-game title win against the Canadiens.
From left, Gordie Howe, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay, Detroit's famed "Production Line," photographed in February 1948 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
Lindsay's record topped that of Toronto's Don Metz, who scored three in a span of 11:25 in Game 5 of the Final against Detroit on April 14, 1942.
In 1956-57, his first of four seasons as captain, Richard would lead Montreal to a five-game defeat of Boston, a successful Stanley Cup defense for the 1955-56 champions. The Canadiens would win three more titles consecutively through 1959-60, Richard winning eight in his career before his 1960 retirement, Montreal's run of five straight an unprecedented feat.
Marner's hat trick, coming at even strength, coincidentally came on the 70th anniversary of the NHL's adoption of its so-called "Montreal Rule." Until it was passed June 6, 1956, rules demanded that a penalized player was required to serve the full two minutes of a minor penalty no matter how many goals the opposition scored with a man-advantage.
Maurice Richard lies on a medical table, having a leg injury tended to by trainer Hec Dubois during a 1957 game at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
The Canadiens scored an NHL-high 66 power-play goals in the 70-game regular season of 1955-56; that total included three in a 44-second span by future captain Jean Beliveau in the same power-play against visiting Bruins goalie Terry Sawchuk on Nov. 5, 1955.
Marner didn't need the extra ice of 5-on-4 to rewrite the record book Saturday.
Richard's second goal in his historic hat trick came on the power play, Bernie Geoffrion also scoring on a man-advantage during the four-goal Canadiens' eruption after Boston's Fleming MacKell gave the visitors a 1-0 lead. The Rocket bagged his fourth of the night at 18:17 of the third period, the victory long since decided.
With his Stanley Cup Final record performance for the ages, Richard had reporters turning the pages back to his March 23, 1944, five-goal dismantling of the Maple Leafs in the Canadiens' 5-1 victory. Famously, the Rocket was chosen as all three stars after Game 2 of the semifinal series.
Bernie Geoffrion (l.) and Maurice Richard celebrate the Canadiens' Stanley Cup victory in the dressing room of the Montreal Forum on April 16, 1957.
"Part of the Leafian strategy was to tie up Richard," Montreal Gazette columnist Dink Carroll wrote. "They said they could stop the Habitants by stopping him. But last night they simply could not hold the boy from Bordeaux, and to coach Dick Irvin must go an assist for the black-haired forward's great display."
Thirteen years later, the superlatives were flying again following Richard's record-setting hat trick.
"Rocket Richard, author of so many glittering chapters during a 15-year career in the NHL, still remains a generous distance from closing the book," wrote Montreal Star sports editor Baz O'Meara. "Nobody this year has so dominated a game as the Rocket did. He wasn't only great on offense, he was wonderful on defense."
Leaving Forum ice to a huge ovation, Richard suggested modestly that his feat wasn't really noteworthy, the record book in disagreement for the next 69 years.
"The Rocket was just terrific," Canadiens coach Toe Blake, a 1940s Richard linemate, said of the record-setting hat trick he had just witnessed. "He never skated any faster in his life than he did tonight.
The last of Maurice Richard's four goals scored beats Boston Bruins goalie Don Simmons on April 6, 1957, this image from the April 8 edition of the Montreal Star.
"Sometime during the summer, somebody is going to ask me whether I think the Rocket will try to come back for another season," Blake added, laughing. "All I can say is that the guy who asks me had better watch out because I'm liable to clobber him. But I hope he's only a little guy."
Bruins coach Milt Schmidt, who had many battles over a decade as a Richard opponent, had praise of his own, saying, "I never saw the Rocket go as well as he did tonight."
Surrounded by reporters, Richard rubbed his left cheekbone, bruised after a last-minute collision with rugged Bruins forward Vic Stasiuk.
"I don't think it was an elbow," Richard said, the Bruins not finding a way to corral the Canadiens sniper. "He caught me with his shoulder, and I must have hit my face against the boards."
Maurice Richard points to his sweater inside Montreal Forum dressing room, the Rocket serving as the team's captain for four seasons and four Stanley Cup championships from 1956-57 through his retirement in 1959-60.
Having long ago run out of angles to describe the Rocker, reporters threw questions from every direction, wondering whether Richard had pulled something special out of his pregame hat.
"Just the usual routine," he said with a shrug. "Some nights, you're just going like that."
If not for Simmons' excellent play, Richard could have scored five or six.
"I guess you're right at that," he replied to the suggestion. "He beat me with his skate on a breakaway in the third period and I hit the post on another."
Photographers muscled around Richard in the crowded dressing room, one taking Beliveau's No. 4 from above the latter's stall and having the Rocket symbolically hold it. Another brought the star's 4-year-old son Normand into the room, posing him with his father.
The 1956-57 Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Canadiens. Bottom row, from left: Jacques Plante, Henri Richard, coach Toe Blake, assistant GM Kenny Reardon, captain Maurice Richard, president Hartland de Montarville Molson, GM Frank Selke, Dickie Moore, Gerry McNeil. Middle row: PR director Camil Desroches, Floyd Curry, Doug Harvey, Dollard St. Laurent, Jean Beliveau, Ab McDonald, Tom Johnson, Al Langlois, Bernie Geoffrion, PR Frank Selke Jr. Top row: Trainer Hec Dubois, Marcel Bonin, Claude Provost, Don Marshall, Jean-Guy Talbot, Bob Turner, Phil Goyette, Andre Pronovost, Connie Broden, trainer Larry Aubut.
Credit to photographer Alain Brouillard, much of whose work is archived at the Hockey Hall of Fame, for handing Richard enough pucks to fill both fists and having him drop them in a steel pail between his skates.
Richard forever has transcended hockey in Montreal and Quebec, a French-Canadian superstar who was almost necessary to a people in the 1940s and 1950s.
He played 978 NHL games, all for the Canadiens, from 1942 through 1960, scoring 544 goals -- still atop the team's all-time list -- with 422 assists. Richard's 966 points rank fourth on the Canadiens, and he leads the franchise in 20-goal seasons (14), 30-goal seasons (nine; tied with Steve Shutt) and hat tricks (26).
The Rocket's 82 playoff goals, eighth in NHL history, lead the Canadiens too, three better than Beliveau, while his seven playoff games of at least three goals are second in the NHL (tied with Jari Kurri), trailing only the 10 of Wayne Gretzky.
Bruins goalie Don Simmons, victimized by Maurice Richard's record-setting hat trick, watches Marcel Bonin and Fern Flaman chase the puck at the Montreal Forum.
For nearly 70 years, until he was bumped by Marner, Richard's record stood firm. The 1957 night that history was made, Simmons, a rookie, considered his role as the unwilling assistant in the Rocket's magic act.
"I got a piece of three of his goals," Simmons said. "One on my left foot, one on my right foot and one on my chest. It's a strange sensation to see the Rocket coming in on you, his eyes popping like headlights."
If this wasn't his night, Simmons would see brighter times. He would win the Stanley Cup three times consecutively with the Maple Leafs from 1962-64.
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