2006-07 Toronto Maple Leafs Mats Sundin Jersey

On this date in 2006, the Calgary Flames traveled to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs. Darcy Tucker opened the scoring at 8:09 of the first period with assists from Kyle Wellwood and Mats Sundin on a power play to give Toronto a 1-0 lead. Sundin extended the Toronto lead to 2-0 at 15:28 from a beautiful cross-ice pass from Brian McCabe with a second assist going to Jeff O'Neill.

The second period saw the Flames roar back with three goals in less than 12 minutes, as Mark Giordano scored at 4:52 followed by a shorthanded goal by Matthew Lombardi at 7:53 followed by Giordano's second of the period at 11:26 to give Calgary a 3-2 lead.

Alex Steen tied the game for Toronto at 17:38 from Matt Stajan and Chad Kilger. Sundin then restored the lead for the Maple Leafs lead for the second time with a goal at 18:48 from Tucker and Ian White after a drop pass from Tucker, which Sundin gathered up and quickly fired a laser shot over Miikka Kiprusoff's left shoulder and into the upper corner of the net.

The Maple Leafs lead would not hold up however, as Calgary's Daymond Lankow tied the game once more with a goal at 7;15 of the third period. The remainder of regulation passed with plenty of chances, as the Flames took 15 shots in the period while Toronto had 13 of their own, but
Kiprusoff and Toronto's Andrew Raycroft held firm and regulation ended in a 4-4 tie, but not before Tucker took a hooking penalty with just eight seconds remaining in the period.

Overtime then began with Toronto a man down, but a turnover by Alex Tanguay led to a rush by Mats Sundin, who skated down the left hand side and, once over the blueline, fired a shot from a long way out, which eluded Kiprusoff to not only win the game for the Maple Leafs, but also made Sundin the first Swedish player, and 35th of all time, to score 500 goals in the NHL, and in style too, as his milestone 500th goal came not only both shorthanded and unassisted, but also completed a hat trick in front of the delirious home fans at the Air Canada Centre!

"It's a special way to get it. I'll remember this day throughout my whole life," Sundin said following the game.

Combined with his assist on the first Toronto goal, his hat trick gave him four points on the memorable night. The winning goal was his 15th overtime goal of his career, the most in NHL history at the time.

Even Flames captain Jarome Iginla had to admire Sundin on the night. "He was really going tonight. It was an amazing shot on that last goal. Not many people would have stopped that. He got a screen and he got it all. You don't want to call it a nice goal, but it was impressive," said Iginla.

Today's featured jersey is a 2006-07 Toronto Maple Leafs Mats Sundin jersey, from the season he scored his 500th career goal and 900th point as a Maple Leaf.

This particular jersey features the Teammates for Kids patch, as worn by Sundin and his Maple Leafs teammates on January 6th, 2007.

As part of the program, each player on every team would play one game with the patch on their jerseys, which would then be auctioned off for chairity to raise money for the Garth Brooks Teammates for Kids Foundation. This would result in over 600 game worn jerseys entering the market in a single go.

Today's featured video is Sundin scoring four points in the game on October 14th, 2006, concluding with him scoring his milestone 500th career goal shorthanded in overtime to complete his hat trick and defeat the Calgary Flames 5-4, sending the home crowd into euphoria.