Weird NHL Vol. 128: Holiday Hockey Has Gone Completely Off the Rails

Welcome back to Weird NHL — and this week’s holiday edition delivers an all-time lineup of chaos, mishaps, bizarre bounces, and moments that only this league can produce.

We kick things off in Calgary with a national anthem mix-up at the Saddledome, followed by a visiting Flames fan getting playfully roasted by the Blues broadcast. Even Santa makes an early rinkside appearance.

In Colorado, Gabriel Landeskog finally breaks through after being cursed by the hockey gods all season, including three disallowed goals. Rasmus Andersson brings back his infamous stare-down with full November energy.

In Philadelphia, Gritty inserts himself into a scrum between Edmonton and the Flyers. We see an incredible close call involving Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman, and around the league we see a full serving of fortunate — and unfortunate — bounces.

The Tampa Bay Lightning endure a quadruple sequence of bad luck:
• Erik Černák accidentally pushes the puck across his own goal line
• Andrei Vasilevskiy loses his footing, gifting Vincent Trocheck an easy rebound tap-in
• J.J. Moser redirects a puck into his own net to complete the chaos
• Rangers benefit after puck deflects off Tampa d-man Charle-Edouard D'Astous and behind Vasilevskiy

At the NHL Global Series in Sweden, Evgeni Malkin banks in goals in back-to-back games off the Predators.

Columbus adds another chapter to the collection of “off the ref and in” disallowed goals.

William Nylander delivers the most impressive own goal of the season so far, while Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobeš gets startled by the Blue Jackets cannon.

In the Avalanche booth, we get the instantly iconic call:
“Paint my reindeer and call me a goblin!”

We also feature the world’s largest Mathew Barzal bobblehead, a friendly-fire snow shower for Lukas Dostal, teammates having fun at the expense of young stars Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini, unique pregame eye routines from Connor Hellebuyck and Dustin Wolf, and — of course — Brad Marchand doing Brad Marchand things.

Holiday hockey never disappoints. Enjoy the weird.