Red-hot Alex Burrows records back-to-back hat tricks for Vancouver Canucks
When Alex Burrows potted his third goal of the night in the third period of January 7's 4-0 win over Phoenix, the winger became just the third player in Vancouver Canucks history—and the first in more than 23 years—to join the back-to-back hat trick club.
Bobby Schmautz was the first in 1972 when he followed up a three-goal game against L.A. with four two nights later against Buffalo. Petri Skriko then performed the feat in games against Calgary and the New York Rangers in 1986 (Skriko wound up with three hat tricks in a five-game run).
Burrows has now joined Sidney Crosby, Dany Heatley, Alexei Kovalev, and Mike Cammalleri as the only players to have a pair of hat tricks in the NHL this season, but he is the first to score them in consecutive games. He now has seven of his 17 goals this season in the past three games.
Burrows, whose story of rising from the ranks of the East Coast Hockey League to make it to the NHL has been well-documented, also holds the distinction of having the best NHL season of the more than 450 ECHL grads who've made the jump to the big leagues. His 28-goals last year make Burrows the highest scoring ECHL grad in a single NHL season (Minnesota's Andrew Brunette is the career leader with 226 NHL goals—Burrows has 67).
But thanks to the back-to-back hat tricks, Burrows looks like he'll raise the bar he set a year ago and now stands a decent shot at his first 30-goal season in his five years in the NHL.
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