Third Goal In Nine Days

The goaltender to the left is Pyotr Kochetkov playing for the KHL's Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo. As you can see, he seems to be clearing the puck from danger in his stance, and that came into play last night. Kochetkov was drafted 36th-overall in 2019 by the Carolina Hurricanes who currently have him playing for the AHL's Chicago Wolves. I was surprised that no one reported that an NHL team didn't ask about him in a trade with Carolina considering he's already 13 NHL games in 22 appearances, but those stats only get better when you hear he's 26-5-3 in parts of two seasons with Chicago. I'm likely not the only person thinking that Kochetkov is Carolina's starting netminder of the future, but he may have upped his stock with the franchise a little more after last night's game.

It was a Central Division matchup between the visiting third-place Manitoba Moose and the sixth-place Chicago Wolves. Chicago had a 2-0 lead thanks to a couple of first-period Jack Drury goals, and that score was looming large as time ticked down in the third period. After all sorts of chaos involving game misconducts, the Wolves were killing a penalty with less than four minutes to play when the Moose decided to go 6-on-4 to close the gap. Manitoba dumped the puck into the Wolves' zone, and we'll pick up the video from there.
Kochetkov scored a shorthanded goal at 16:42 to put the Wolves up 3-0. He might have done less celebrating had he known that Manitoba's Cole Meier would break the shutout 54 seconds later, but there's no denying that the damage had been done with Kochetkov scoring that goal. Chicago would add another empty-netter from Ronan Seeley, and the Wolves went home with a 4-1 win. Kochetkov made 39 stops to earn the win to go along with his first professional hockey goal!

Officially, Kochetkov becomes the 19th goalie in the AHL record book for scoring a goal. Those names include:

• Darcy Wakaluk, Rochester – Dec. 5, 1987 at Utica
• Paul Cohen, Springfield – Mar. 28, 1992 vs. Rochester
• Robb Stauber, Rochester – Oct. 9, 1995 at Prince Edward Island
• Christian Bronsard, Syracuse – Oct. 30, 1999 at Rochester
• Jean-Francois Labbe, Hartford – Feb. 5, 2000 at Quebec
• Chris Mason, Milwaukee – Oct. 15, 2001 at Utah
• Antero Niittymaki, Philadelphia – Apr. 11, 2004 at Hershey*
• Seamus Kotyk, Milwaukee – Apr. 17, 2005 at San Antonio
• Drew MacIntyre, Manitoba – Feb. 20, 2008 at Chicago*
• Chris Holt, Binghamton – Mar. 19, 2010 vs. Rochester
• Reto Berra, Lake Erie – Jan. 16, 2015 at Chicago
• Jonas Gustavsson, Bakersfield – Mar. 24, 2017 vs. San Diego
• Alex Nedeljkovic, Charlotte – Mar. 10, 2018 vs. Hartford
• Tristan Jarry, W-B/Scranton – Nov. 14, 2018 at Springfield
• Maxime Lagace, Chicago - May 25, 2019 at San Diego**
• Collin Delia, Rockford - Dec. 17, 2021 at Texas
• Lukas Dostal, San Diego - Mar. 2, 2022 at Colorado
• Jesper Wallstedt, Iowa - Nov. 12, 2022 at Chicago
• Pyotr Kochetkov, Chicago - Feb. 3, 2023 vs Manitoba

The two starred goals scored by Niittymaki and MacIntyre were overtime goals, and the double-asterisked goal scored by Lagace was a playoff goal. Of the 19 goalie goals scored in AHL history, five, including Kochetkov's goal, were scored by the home-team netminder.

What might be even funnier than watching Kochetkov's celebration was the fact that he didn't play the final 27 seconds of this game as he and Moose defender Jimmy Oligny got into a hack battle as both were assessed slashing penalties and given game misconducts for their behaviour. February 3, 2023 might be a day that Kochetkov will remember forever as he earned the win, scored a goal, and was tossed from the game while amassing 22 minutes in penalties!

I don't know if Pyotr Kochetkov will ever have a night again like he did last night, but HBIC is here to celebrate goalie goals and Kochetkov is part of that exclusive club now. Congratulations to Pyotr Kochetkov on his goal, and he's now the third goalie in the last nine days to jump into the offence while being the last line of defence!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!