Goalie goals 'neat thing' with Shesterkin latest to score in empty net

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, also known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his insight and humor with readers each Wednesday. When Igor Shesterkin became the first goalie in New York Rangers history to score a goal, it conjured memories Ron Hextall being the original. Yet a good eight decades before Hextall's landmark goal, Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Chuck Rayner skated end-to-end for a goal in a wartime Army-Navy game sprinkled with NHL players who were serving in the Canadian armed forces.

They said it couldn't be done.

Not a single NHL goalie had scored a goal. Then, it happened: 

On Dec. 8, 1987, Ron Hextall of the Philadelphia Flyers scored into an empty Boston Bruins net and subsequently was hailed throughout the hockey world for a unique feat. 

Igor Shesterkin became the latest of the 18 NHL goalies to score a total of 21 goals (19 in the regular season, two in the playoffs) to complete a 5-1 win for the New York Rangers against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 1. 

The goal was the first by any Rangers goalie, unassisted at 17:26 of the third period.

Hextall shot into empty net to finish a 5-2 Flyers win against the Bruins on Dec. 8, 1987.

"I'm happy for guys when they do it," Hextall told NHL.com. "It's kind of a neat thing, for sure."

Ironically, and virtually hidden from journalistic view, there was one even more extraordinary, pulled off by Brooklyn (New York) Americans goalie Chuck Rayner, who was serving in the Royal Canadian Navy, based in Victoria, British Columbia, during World War II.

A future Ranger and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, "Bonnie Prince Charlie" often played on team well-stocked with NHL players, like the Royal Canadian Army team he would face on that fateful night in 1944.

According to present rules, no NHL goalie is permitted to skate beyond center, but no such regulation was in place when the rival service teams began what became an intense battle.

"That got me thinking," Rayner told me during a Rangers team reunion in Manhattan and later for a television special called "Legends of Hockey." 

"I was a good skater and had practiced a lot of stickhandling, so I figured I could take a chance going end to end and score a goal -- if an opportunity presented itself.

"It finally did when some fights filled up the penalty box and the teams were skating 3-on-3. For a while, the Army guys had control of the puck in our zone.

"Bill Carse, who previously had been with the Chicago Black Hawks, took a hard shot that hit me high on the chest and bounced way out in front of me. I saw that there was no one ahead of me who would be in my way, so I said to myself, 'Hey, let's go.'

"I grabbed the puck and went straight down the ice, me against the Army goalie, Art Rice-Jones,
who'd been a real good minor leaguer before the war. Jones was stunned when he saw me coming at him with full pads. I shot high and beat him on the stick side. He had no chance."

After the war, Rayner signed with the Rangers as a free agent beginning with the 1945-46 season.

"After I'd signed on with New York, we were battling for a playoff berth against the Canadiens during the 1946-47 season. I kept thinking I'd go for a goal again, knowing that my coach, Frank Boucher, was in my corner."

The Rangers were trailing the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 late in the third period at the Montreal Forum on Feb. 1, 1947, when Rayner was dispatched out of his crease to join the power play. 

After viewing Rayner's elephantine goalie pads, Montreal Gazette columnist Dink Carroll wrote: 

"The final minute of play was the most spectacular of the local hockey season," Carroll observed. "Bulky pads and all, Rayner kept battling the Montrealers for the puck."

The bushy-browed goalie's quest for his second goalie goal never materialized. That one breakaway goalie he put up for his Navy squad in the interservice game was satisfying enough.

"I wouldn't trade it in for all the money in the world," he said.