What’s the Most Memorable Single-Game Performance in NHL History?

Ask ten hockey people the question about memorable performances, and you’ll get at least fifteen answers. Stats people will reach for the record book. Players will remember how it felt. Fans will remember where they were sitting, who they were with, and whether they believed what they were seeing was even possible.

That’s what made this recent Hockey Central “Hot Topic” such a good watch. There wasn’t a wrong answer — just different ways of remembering greatness.

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Mario Lemieux’s Five Goals in Five Different Ways

The conversation started where it often does: Mario Lemieux. New Year’s Eve, 1988. Five goals, five different ways. Even saying it out loud sounds made up. Even strength. Power play. Short-handed. Penalty shot. Empty net. A perfect bingo card for scoring. There’s a video of it, which somehow makes it more unbelievable, not less. You keep waiting for the game to settle down, and it never does. No one’s ever repeated it. Probably no one ever will.

And that wasn’t even the only Mario moment that came up.

Mario Lemieux Scores the Day of His Final Radiation Treatment

Someone else brought up Lemieux’s return from cancer in March of 1993. Final radiation treatment earlier that day. Missing hair. Wearing the turtleneck. Playing in Philadelphia — not exactly a soft landing spot. The crowd gives him a standing ovation before the puck even drops. Then he goes out and does the most Mario Lemieux thing imaginable: a goal and an assist, like it’s just another afternoon at the office, on his way to another Art Ross. That performance barely even fits into the “single-game” category because it’s bigger than hockey. Everyone watching knew it.

But memorable doesn’t always mean goals.

Ben Scrivens Stopped 59 Shots in a 3–0 Shutout for the Oilers

One of the panellists stayed closer to home, remembering a cold winter night in Edmonton in 2014. Ben Scrivens, in net for the Oilers, stops 59 shots in a 3–0 win over San Jose — still the NHL record for saves in a regular-season shutout. The detail that sticks? He apparently had the worst warm-up of his life. That’s how hockey goes sometimes. Another moment from that game: Nick Schultz, playing his 1,000th NHL game, blocking a late shot that was almost certainly going in. The kind of play that never shows up in highlight reels, but teammates never forget. For the backup goalie on the bench that night, it was front-row seats to something unforgettable.

Then the conversation took a slight turn away from the NHL — and honestly, that felt right.

Jonathan Toews in the World Juniors Shootout: Three Tries, Three Goals

Jonathan Toews at the World Juniors. Shootout. Three attempts, three goals. Each one was different. One upstairs. One five-hole. One pure confidence. Semi-final on the line, tournament on the line, the whole country watching. That’s a single player being asked to step forward and decide a game — and doing it with creativity, calm, and nerve. It might not be an NHL game, but it’s absolutely an NHL-level memory.

These Great Performances Are Stories Bigger Than the Scoreboard

What ties all of these performances together isn’t just talent. It’s context. Timing. Stakes. Emotion.

A five-goal night is impressive. A five-goal night on New Year’s Eve, captured on grainy footage that’s been replayed for decades, becomes mythology. A shutout becomes historic when the shots keep coming, and the goalie never blinks. A good game becomes unforgettable when everyone in the building understands what the player just walked through to get there.

That’s the thing about “most memorable.” It’s not always the biggest stat line. Sometimes it’s the night when the game tells a bigger story than the scoreboard.

And that’s why this debate never really ends — and why it shouldn’t. Hockey memories aren’t just kept in record books. They live in voices, in benches, in old broadcasts, and in the quiet “you had to see it” moments that never quite fade.

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