Last week in the NHL: Gaudreau’s legacy lives on, Fleury remembered in emotional Pittsburgh finale, Matthews meets his Leafs doppelgänger

Every week, we’ll update you on all the important happenings in the hockey world over the past seven days — from the NHL and beyond.

There were plenty of viral happenings around the game last week, including a trio of No. 13s rising to the top of the NHL scoring race, Fleury’s final game in Pittsburgh, Auston Matthews meeting his doppelgänger, Alex Ovechkin heating up in pursuit of Gretzky’s elusive record, a cheeseburger run for the ages, big-time fights, slick passes, a former player suing his agent and more.

Here’s the top sights, sounds and news you might have missed in hockey last week.

Three players tied for goal-scoring lead all wear Johnny Gaudreau’s No. 13

We’ll start this week off with a bit of a heartwarming stat.

As of Monday, three of the players currently tied for the NHL’s goal scoring lead with 10 apiece — Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier and Montreal Canadiens sniper Cole Caufield — each wear No. 13 on the back of their respective jerseys.

It’s the same number the late Johnny Gaudreau wore throughout his 10-plus year NHL career with both the Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets. Gaudreau, alongside his brother Matthew, were killed on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding in late August while riding bicycles near their hometown in New Jersey.

While Hischier and Reinhart have worn No. 13 for quite some time, Caufield actually switched his number right before the season to honour Gaudreau.

Caufield explained his decision and detailed just how much “Johnny Hockey” meant to him, especially as a smaller player who ascended to superstar status during his career, in an Instagram post in early September.

Marc-Andre Fleury’s final game in Pittsburgh brings all the feels

Unless the Wild and Penguins miraculously find themselves facing each other in this season’s Stanley Cup final, future Hall-of-Fame goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury played his final game in Pittsburgh last Tuesday, and the night was as emotional as you’d expect.

Fleury, now in his 21st NHL campaign, turns 40 next month and has indicated the 2024-25 season would be his last. The Penguins icon went out with a bang, making 26 saves as the Wild beat Fleury’s former club 5-3 in in PPG Paints Arena.

Ahead of the highly-anticipated contest, the Penguins social team posted a video montage of Fleury’s career highlights — but not the on-ice kind.

It was a shenanigans highlight reel for the ages.

After the game, Fleury couldn’t hold back his emotions as he detailed how amazing his time in Pittsburgh was and how much it meant to him to have the send-off he did in his finale.

And, in true Fleury fashion, the Wild goaltender took some time after his final practice in Pittsburgh last Monday to spend a few minutes stopping pucks from some teenagers at a hockey camp.

Fleury is widely known as one of the nicest, most generous players and beloved teammates in the NHL, but his on-ice success over his days with the Penguins obviously can’t be overlooked, either.

After being drafted No. 1 overall — a rarity for a goaltender — by Pittsburgh in 2003, Fleury won three Stanley Cups (2009, 2016, 2017) in 13 seasons with the Pens before being poached by the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017 Expansion Draft, where he led Vegas to the Stanley Cup final in its very first season.

Fan who dressed up as Auston Matthews for Halloween has a week to remember

Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews has a young doppelgänger, or is it the other way around?

After going viral for dressing up as the Leafs captain’s hockey card for Halloween, Grayson Joseph, a young Leafs and Matthews fan, got to meet his idol for the first time.

“You look like me,” Grayson said to Matthews in an Instagram video posted by the team.

“Yeah, I do look like you. Your moustache is better, though,” replied Matthews.

In the video posted by the team, young Grayson gets a front row seat to the team’s morning skate team before getting to meet — and challenge to a fight — Maple Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves.

Grayson then got to watch Toronto beat Seattle 4-1 at home later that night, and the team made his experience extra special by showing him in his Matthews costume on the jumbotron near the end of the second period.

“What an ovation he received by the arena!” Grayson’s father Grant penned in an Instagram post.

With his biggest fan in the building, Matthews scored an empty-netter to seal the win, along with an assist earlier in the night for a two-point effort.

Alex Ovechkin keeps cooking as pursuit of Gretzky’s goal record heats up

In a season where a record once thought to be unbreakable could crumble, the man chasing history is not slowing down one bit.

Entering the season, aging superstar Alex Ovechkin — who remains one of the premier goal-scorers in the world at the age of 39 — found himself 42 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record of 894.

Last Tuesday against the New York Rangers, Ovi potted two goals early in the first period to put his uber-productive week in motion.

After scoring his 858th career goal versus Montreal on Halloween night and burying his 859th tally on Saturday against the Blue Jackets, Ovechkin stayed scorching-hot with goal No. 860 — in classic Ovechkin fashion with a one-time blast from the left circle — versus the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Ovechkin’s monster five-goal week has him just 34 tallies away from tying Gretzky’s elusive all-time goal mark.

If he stays hot, we could very well see “The Great One’s” record fall sometime this season.

Oilers dodge a bullet after Connor McDavid injury scare

After an injury scare to the best player in the game had Oilers fans holding their collective breath, the team received the best possible news regarding its captain days after Connor McDavid flew home to Edmonton to be assessed after he suffered a serious-looking injury versus the Nashville Predators last Monday.

Miraculously, the Oilers captain was back on the ice skating last Thursday, just one day after he was given a two-to-three week timeline for his ankle injury.

According to TSN’s Chris Johnston, there’s a feeling that McDavid could return even sooner than the initial timeline.

“On Thursday morning, Connor McDavid did put on the skates just to test things out with that ankle injury,” Johnston explained on Insider Trading.

“I had a chance to speak to his agent, Judd Moldaver from Wasserman. He basically said, ‘Look, things are pretty encouraging here.’ I mean, there was some real concern, obviously, when McDavid left the game earlier this week, flew home, went through the battery of tests he did. And you get that two-to-three week timeline. But you know, at this point they’re going to have to take things day-by-day, make sure he has no setbacks.

“But this is a player that’s come back ahead of schedule before and I won’t offer any predictions at this point — but certainly all signs are pointing to him getting up and running here again as soon as possible.”

An all-time burger run courtesy of Brent Burns

Hurricanes defenseman Brent Burns has always been beloved by his teammates and NHL fans alike, and now we know exactly why.

The thread below from Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy details an epic McDonald’s run from Burns, who reportedly ordered over 100 cheeseburgers for teammates before asking a stranger to hop in the passenger seat of their car so he could hit the drive thru to pick up his massive order.

Legend.

Scraps of the week

There were some big-time tilts across the league this week, featuring some of the game’s premier heavyweights and a couple of guys you wouldn’t necessarily think of as top-tier fist-throwers.

First, we have Flames forward Ryan Lomberg absolutely manhandling Nathan Bastian of the Devils.

Good lord:

Capitals tough guy Dylan McIlrath and Rangers enforcer Matt Rempe square off in the heavyweight everybody wanted to see.

It did not disappoint:

This was less of a fight and more of a pure beatdown via Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin.

You might need an Advil yourself after watching this one:

Dishes of the week

Some incredible, behind-the back assists took centre stage this past week, including three gems via Aleksander Barkov, Nikita Kucherov and Kyle Connor.

The former absolutely threads the needle here with a slick, spinning feed to Sam Reinhart who finishes it off.

Lightning star Nikita Kucherov, meanwhile, did this:

And Winnipeg Jets star Kyle Connor may have had the prettiest feed of them all:

Embattled Alex Formenton files $20.5-million against former agent

Ex-Ottawa Senators forward Alex Formenton, who is currently one of the five former Canadian World Junior players awaiting trial on sexual assault charges stemming from a 2018 incident, has reportedly filed a $20.5 million lawsuit against player agency Newport Sports Management Inc., and his former agent Wade Arnott, per TSN’s Rick Westhead.

The suit alleged negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.

Formenton, who is now 25, alleges that he suffered income loss for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 NHL seasons, along with future income arising from lost playing time in the NHL, because of Arnott and Newport’s “misconduct,” according to court documents.

As Westhead noted, Formenton’s allegations have not yet been tested in court. Newport, the largest hockey agency in the NHL, features plenty of big-name clients including Blackhawks star Connor Bedard, Penguins blueliner Erik Karlsson, Bruins captain Brad Marchand, and superstar siblings Brady (Senators) and Matthew (Panthers) Tkachuk.