Every Red Wings Hat Trick from the 21-22 Season

Tyler Bertuzzi, 10/14/21, vs. Tampa Bay

The season started out with a bang for Tyler Bertuzzi when he scored 4 goals at the home opener against the Tampa Bay Lighting. What makes it even better is that he put all these pucks past one of the best goalies in the NHL, Andrei Vasilevskiy. It was an exciting game and you can find an entire game recap here.

Bertuzzi’s first goal of the game came at only 18 seconds into the second period. Nick Leddy sent a pass from his own goal line to Bert at the Wings blue line. Bert gabbed the pass and then blew right by both Mikhail Sergachev and Victor Hedman, with a pass to himself through his own legs, on his way to putting the puck past Vasilevskiy on his blocker side.

It was one of the sweetest goals scored by a Red Wing all year and sure to be on the highlight reels for years to come. Leddy picked up the primary assist on the goal and the secondary assist was credited to Moritz Seider on what was his first NHL point. I don’t think any of us really had an idea how many points he would score this season, but it all started here.

Less than 8 minutes later in the second Bertuzzi got on the board again with his second goal of the night. This goal was more the style of goal that I was expecting from Bert on this night. It all started when Gus Lindstrom kept the puck in the zone at the blue line and found Adam Erne open in the high slot.

Erne beat Vasilevskiy on his blocker side but he rang it off the iron and the puck landed behind the goalie and was just sitting there waiting for Bert. Luckily, Tyler was sitting at his desk right on the edge of the crease of the Tampa goal and pounded the puck home for the third Wings goal of the game giving them the 3-0 lead.

Later in the second the Wings ended up on a 4 on 3 power play and were able to sustain some pressure in the Tampa zone. Lucas Raymond hit Robbi Fabbri with a perfect pass in the left circle and as all the attention focused on him, he found Bert open on the other side of the goal.

The pass ended up right on Tyler’s stick and when Vasilevskiy went down trying to come back over, Bert put the puck right in the back of the net. The hats started flying all over the ice as the hometown crowd went nuts! This goal got another rookie his first NHL point as Raymond was credited with the secondary assist on the goal.

On this night a hat trick wasn’t going to be enough for Bert. As a Tampa Bay power play came to an end, Seider got a hold of the puck behind the Wings goal and was able to clear it the length of the ice. Just as the puck sailed through neutral ice Tyler was released from the penalty box. He wasted no time getting down to the puck that was sitting deep in the Tampa zone.

Namestnikov was skating right towards the crease and drew the attention of the two Tampa defenders that had made their way down ice. This left Bert all alone to square up to Vasilevskiy and put a perfect shot over his shoulder on the blocker side. This stretched the Detroit lead back out to two goals and had the game at 5-3.

Unfortunately, this game ended up being a loss for the Wings as Tampa won the game in overtime after a dramatic third period in which regulation ended in a 6-6 tie. Even though they lost, the Red Wings played a great game and I was feeling pretty good about the team’s chances for the season after this good of a performance against the Stanley Cup champs. We all know that the season didn’t turn out great, but hopes were high after this game.

Lucas Raymond, 10/24/21, at Chicago

It was only 10 days later that Lucas Raymond scored his first career hat trick in only his sixth NHL appearance. For the rookie this was a huge performance that I feel helped push him into the successful season that he had. At this point in the season he was already playing on the top line with Larkin and Bertuzzi. You can read a full game recap of this night here.

Raymond’s first goal of the night opened the scoring in this game just before the 6 minute mark of the first period. It all started when the puck was cleared out of the Red Wings zone all the way down the other end of the ice and icing was waved off. A Chicago player got to the puck first and his clearing attempt was grabbed by Bertuzzi.

Lucas was coming straight down the slot and was wide open since the Blackhawks that were back focusing on Bertuzzi. Bert spotted Raymond and put the pass right on the tape of his stick. After a quick little move on Marc-Andre Fleury, Raymond snuck the puck right through the five hole for his second NHL goal.

Since the opening goal the game had opened up to a 4-2 Detroit lead. It was nearing the end of the second period and it looked like they would head into intermission this way. Then the Wings top line gained the Chicago zone all together and with Bertuzzi heading down the boards with the puck, Larkin snuck over to the high slot and made himself wide open.

Bertuzzi found Larkin with a great pass and he had time to get a shot on Fleury and it hit him on the glove side and bounced onto the ice behind him. All the while Raymond was sneaking up the side of the crease to put himself in a great position behind Fleury so he was right there to bang the puck home for his second goal on the night giving the Wings a 5-2 lead in the game

Raymond finished off his hat trick in the third period when a Chicago penalty put the Wings on the power play. With the puck out near the blue line Mo Seider got the puck to Larkin in the left circle. Larkin then found Raymond open and put the cross seam pass to him right on the mark.

Lucas caught it perfectly and his shot hit the bottom of Fleury’s pad and went under him to score his first professional hat trick in only his sixth NHL game. This goal along with Bertuzzi’s goal made it 4 goals from the top line this night. This game was a huge win for the Wings after they had lost 6-1 in Montreal the night before.

Dylan Larkin, 12/18/21, vs. New Jersey

Even though this hat trick was the last one of the season for Detroit, I was surprised to find out that it was also Dylan Larkin’s first hat trick of his career.  This is another time where my memory was failing me cause I could have sworn that I had witnessed a Larkin hat trick at some point in time. Read our full recap of this game here.

The scoring was opened by Larkin this night. Fil Hronek grabbed a puck that was dumped into the Red Wings zone by New Jersey and as he skated around the net, Larkin took off down the ice. Hronek dumped the puck in deep and it took a strange bounce off the corner boards.

The puck bounced right past Akira Schmid who was in goal for New Jersey as he was headed to play it and ended up right in front of the open net and the hustling Larkin was right where he needed to be to take advantage and put the puck in the net.

New Jersey was able to time the game up at 1 and then Larkin struck again. Pius Suter was able to stop a clearing attempt from New Jersey and keep the puck in the offensive zone. He moved the puck down the boards to Namestnikov at the edge of the left circle and he took it an moved in on the goal.

With everyone watching him Larkin was able to sneak into the high slot wide open. Namestnikov threw the puck his way and Dylan reached out and grabbed the puck, shooting it right under the blocker of Schmid to put the Wings back on top in the game. It was a great shot and the goal helped build momentum back up for the Wings.

After the Devils put a couple of straight shots on Greiss the last shot bounced off him and went over to the right side boards and Kyle Criscuolo was in the right spot and grabbed the puck which he was able to catch Larkin halfway through the neutral zone.

With a stretch pass he connected with Larkin and sent him down the ice one on one with the Schmid. Dylan didn’t miss and put the puck right in the back of the net to cap off his first career hat trick. The crowd went nuts and the hats started flying. This was also Criscuolo’s first NHL point for getting the assist on the goal.

How many hat tricks will we get next year?

With all three guys that scored a hat trick this year contracted to come back next year, and some cap space opening up to bring in some players to help on the offense, I feel like we could look for 4 – 5 hat tricks next year. I think we at least get three and not less. How many do you think the Wings will score and who is going to get them? Let me know what you think in the comments section below.