In the history of the National Hockey League, there have been six players ever from the state of Nebraska. Yes, the state is famous for not only the Cornhuskers, but also the fact that Indianapolis Colts’s star quarterback Peyton Manning would bellow out “Omaha” (Nebraska’s largest city) whenever he called an audible. You wouldn’t typically link Nebraska to hockey, but there is one standout center that has put together an excellent career to date–that is Omaha’s Jake Guentzel.
On Tuesday, Guentzel once again had the spotlight in a dominant 5-1 Tampa Bay Lightning over the New Jersey Devils. He scored thrice as the Lightning won easily by four. On the same night that the NHL’s two young superstar sensations also had hat tricks (Macklin Celebrini of the San Jose Sharks and Connor Bedard of the Chicago Blackhawks), it was interesting that Guentzel all of a sudden was put in the same sentence of these two first overall picks.
What we saw from Guentzel was a goal in each period. He opened the scoring with an unassisted marker at 11:40 of the first period, put the Lightning up 3-0 at 10:38 of the second period on the power-play from defenseman Darren Raddysh of Toronto, and Oliver Bjorkstrand of Herning, Denmark and then closed the scoring from Nikita Kucherov of Maykop, Russia and Raddysh at 7:48 of the third period on the power-play.
Guentzel now has 10 NHL career hat tricks (eight in the regular season and two in the postseason). Of Guentzel’s 10 career three goal games, seven have been with the Penguins and three have been with the Lightning). While Guentzel has played with great players in his career (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman, just to name a few), his offensive prowess that he has consistently shown night in and night out cannot be underestimated. Just last season, Guentzel led the NHL with 17 power play goals. He is also a Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a rookie in 2017. In his first year in the NHL, he led players in the playoffs in goals (13), even strength goals (11), game-winning goals (five), and shorthanded goals (one).
There are five other NHL players from Nebraska, but only one other player that is noteworthy. That is defenseman Neal Pionk, who has 261 points. Guentzel, in comparison, has 279 goals and 591 points.
