After four years and 173 regular season games, Bryce Salvador finally found the back of the net. And he needed a little help to get there.
When it's been four years since you last scored a regular season goal in the NHL, you might need a little bit of luck to finally break out of that slump.
That's exactly what New Jersey Devils defenseman Bryce Salvador received on Friday night when he scored in a regular season game for the first time since Mar. 10, 2010, ending a 173-game goal-less drought.
Salvador's shot was initially stopped by Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo only to have the rebound bounce off the leg of his teammate, Dylan Olsen, and end up in the back of the net.
They all look the same in the box score, so anyway you can get them is good enough.
Salvador has been with the Devils since the team acquired him at the 2007-08 trade deadline. He had to miss the entire 2010-11 season due to a concussion. He returned the following year to play in all 82 regular season games as the Devils made their run to the Stanley Cup Final without scoring a single goal (he did, however, improbably score four goals during that playoff run). He followed that up by scoring no goals in 39 games last season and no goals in the first 34 games of this season.