THREE HARD LAPS

* The Canucks matched a franchise record with eight goals in a home opener on the night Bo Horvat was named the 14th captain in team history.

* Sabres captain Jack Eichel factored on four of five goals, including an assist on the overtime winner, as Buffalo improved to 3-0-1 in 2019-20.

* In the Flyers’ first game back in North America, Carter Hart became the youngest goaltender in franchise history to record a shutout.

CANUCKS ERUPT FOR EIGHT GOALS AS HORVAT NAMED CAPTAIN

After former Canucks captain Henrik Sedin helped announce Bo Horvat would take on the mantle during a pre-game ceremony, the duo of J.T. Miller (1-3—4) and Quinn Hughes (1-1—2) powered the Canucks to an eight-goal performance in their home opener.

* The Canucks matched a franchise record for goals in a home opener, a feat accomplished on two other occasions: Oct. 8, 1987 vs. STL and Oct. 11, 1978 vs. CLR. In fact, Vancouver scored at least eight goals in any game for just the fourth time in the last decade.

* Just three other teams in the last 10 years have scored eight or more goals in their home opener: Chicago (10; Oct. 5, 2017 vs. PIT), Philadelphia (8; Oct. 14, 2017 vs. WSH) and Toronto (8; Oct. 7, 2017 vs. NYR).

* Miller, acquired in trade with the Lightning on June 22, registered his first career four-point performance to match the Canucks franchise benchmark for points in a home opener. Greg Adams (4-0—4) and Tony Tanti (0-4—4) originally established the mark over 20 years ago after combining on four of eight Vancouver goals in a win over St. Louis (Oct. 8, 1987).

* Hughes (19 years, 360 days) initiated Wednesday’s outburst with his first NHL goal and became the youngest Canucks defenseman to find the back of the net since J.J Daigneault (19 years, 176 days) did so on April 6, 1985 at Los Angeles.

EICHEL’S FOUR-POINT NIGHT PROPELS SABRES IN OT

Jack Eichel (2-2—4) posted his sixth career outing with at least four points, including an assist on Marcus Johansson’s overtime goal (1-1—2), to help the Sabres register the franchise’s sixth season-opening point streak of at least four games and first since 2009-10 (4-0-1).

* Nineteen-year-old Rasmus Dahlin has collected at least one point in each of Buffalo’s games in 2019-20 and has seven points (1-6—7) in that span – the most by a teenage defenseman through his team’s first four contests to begin a season in NHL history. Only two teenage blueliners in NHL history have recorded a longer season-opening point streak than Dahlin.

* Victor Olofsson opened the scoring with his sixth career NHL goal – all of which have come on the power play. Additionally, the seventh-round pick (181st overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft became the third player in NHL history to score at least six power-play goals through his first 10 career games. The others: Teemu Selanne (7 PPG in 10 GP w/ WIN) and Real Cloutier (6 PPG in 10 GP w/ QUE).

HART POSTS SHUTOUT IN FLYERS’ RETURN TO NORTH AMERICA
In Wayne Simmonds’ first game back at Wells Fargo Center as a member of the opposition, it was Flyers goaltender Carter Hart who turned aside all 25 shots he faced – including this highlight-reel save on Taylor Hall – to lead Philadelphia to its second win in as many contests.

* Hart (21 years, 57 days), who became the youngest goaltender in Flyers franchise history to post a shutout, is the eighth netminder in NHL history aged 21 or younger to win each of his team’s first two games of a season. None of those previous streaks extended to three contests.

* Travis Konecny (1-1—2) posted his second multi-point outing in as many games after leading Philadelphia to a season-opening victory at the 2019 NHL Global Series in Prague, Czech Republic (2-1—3). He became the first Flyers player in over a decade to record consecutive multi-point outings to begin a season and first since Daniel Briere (4-3—7 in 3 GP) and Simon Gagne (2-4—6 in 3 GP) did so in 2007-08.

QUICK CLICKS

* Gary Bettman, Bill Daly to be honored by Business of Hockey Institute

* Devils defenseman P.K. Subban joins rinkside reporter Lazlo Holmes

* Green Day kicks of new season of NBC’s Wednesday Night Hockey

* Goals, crazy comebacks getting to be the norm in October

* Dallas Eakins has winning formula for Ducks

PREVIEW OF TODAY’S ACTION

FIVE NO. 1 OVERALL PICKS IN ACTION WHEN OILERS VISIT DEVILS

Five different players selected No. 1 overall in the NHL Draft are expected to be in action when the Oilers visit the Devils at Prudential Center: New Jersey’s Taylor Hall (2010), Nico Hischier (2017) and Jack Hughes (2019) as well as Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011) and Connor McDavid (2015).

This will mark the 35th time in NHL history that five No. 1 overall picks have skated in one game – the highest total in NHL history – and first time since Dec. 1, 2017 (NJD: Hischier, Hall; COL: Nathan MacKinnon, Nail Yakupov, Erik Johnson).

KESSEL TO MOVE UP CONSECUTIVE GAMES PLAYED LIST

Coyotes forward Phil Kessel is expected to skate in his 777th consecutive game on Thursday, passing Craig Ramsay (776) for sole possession of the seventh-longest ironman streak in NHL history. Coincidentally, Kessel’s rise up the ranks comes 32 years to the day that Doug Jarvis extended his NHL-record consecutive games played streak to 964 games in what would be the final appearance of his NHL career on Oct. 10, 1987.

* It will be the first of a pair of milestone achievements Kessel is expected to reach this week – he is also scheduled to appear in his 1,000th career NHL game on Saturday at Colorado.

The above information was provided by the NHL PR department.