DENVER (AP) — In keeping with hockey tradition Custom Florida Panthers Jerseys , a tip of the cap to honor Alex Ovechkin and Patrik Laine .They’ve each recorded a hat trick of hat tricks this season.Easy as one, two, three. Or so it may seem.Around the league, there have been 61 hat tricks through the first 770 games of the season — the most since 1995-96 (62), according to research by the NHL stats and information department. Leading the surge are Ovechkin of Washington and Laine of Winnipeg with three each.Hold on to your hat, there’s more: There has been at least one three-goal scorer in 10 of the 13 days leading into to the All-Star break.“I think the reason why,” Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen succinctly surmised, “is because scoring around the league is up.”Simple, yes. But on target, too.There have been 132 instances of a team scoring six or more goals in a game so far, which is the most since 2005-06. Teams are averaging 3.03 goals per game, which is on pace for the highest-scoring season since the 3.14 in, you guessed it www.officialkings.com , 1995-96. There has been an 18 percent increase in scoring since the post-expansion low of 2.57 goals per game for teams in 2003-04, before a lockout led to rule changes.Naturally, hat tricks figure to go hand-in-hand with the escalation.“It’s exciting and not something everyone has done,” said Nashville forward Austin Watson , who had his first NHL hat trick on Nov. 25 against Anaheim. “It’s a cool achievement.”Long associated with cricket and soccer, the term hat trick appears to have made its way into the mainstream hockey vernacular when a Toronto businessman offered a hat to any player who scored three goals during an NHL game while visiting his town. As the legend goes, Chicago forward Alex Kaleta went into the shop in 1946 and found a fedora he fancied, according to an NHL.com story . Only, he didn’t have the funds to purchase it. The business owner offered to give it to Kaleta free of charge should he score three goals against the Maple Leafs.Kaleta had four. Presto, a hat trick.These days, hat tricks come in a variety of forms. There’s the natural one (three straight goals by a player), traditional (any three goals, sometimes culminating with a late empty-netter) and of course the “Gordie Howe” (a goal Los Angeles Kings T-Shirts Authentic , assist and a fight).The achievement of a hat trick has long been celebrated with fans tossing their hats on the ice. Ever wonder where all those hats go? The Avs, for one, donate the caps to the Denver Rescue Mission.The fastest NHL hat trick took just 21 seconds by Chicago’s Bill Mosienko (1952). The most in a career? Wayne Gretzky, who had 50. Ovechkin has the most of any active player with 23.They’re far from common — this year’s total of 61 so far is just 8 percent of all games. The Great One needed 1,487 games to get his 50.All the increased scoring means the feat may someday lose a bit of its luster. But not yet.“It’s a pretty hard thing to do,” said Minnesota forward Jason Zucker, who had a hat trick on Nov. 9, 2017. “Scoring any goal in this league is a hard thing to do. To do three in one game is pretty incredible.”Ovechkin had two in a four-day window this season, while Laine had a pair over a six-day span, including a five-goal game on Nov. 24.Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog gave his first hat trick on Nov. 11, 2017, against Washington the royal treatment. He has the puck in a case with the game sheet and a picture. He said he doesn’t have his puck from the second one, which happened a month later.“I don’t think guys are going out there trying to score hat tricks Los Angeles Kings Hoodies Authentic ,” the All-Star Landeskog said. “Guys are going out there trying to help the team win.”As for why there are so many hat tricks this season, Zucker has a simple deduction.“It’s the speed. It’s the skill. It’s the sticks, the way guys shoot pucks now,” Zucker explained. “Guys don’t even have to try to shoot pucks — the sticks do a lot of the work for us.”No need to convince Minnesota’s All-Star goaltender Devan Dubnyk of that.“Teams are discovering ways to create chances and figure how pucks actually go in the net and not just thinking if you throw 50 pucks at the net that you’re going to score a bunch of goals,” Dubnyk said. “It’s understanding how to create offense. You can see it throughout the league this year. There’s a lot of offensive creativity and it’s making it tough for defenses and tough for goalies.” LAS VEGAS (AP) The Golden Knights’ gold-and-grey-on-black helmets are everywhere.They’re on T-shirts and hats worn by mall patrons, on jerseys of moviegoers, on stuffed animals, on mugs and on bumper stickers deep in suburbia. Bars far from the city’s tourist-driven areas show the games on TV, and watch parties have become a regular activity.The arena rocks when the expansion team that has taken the league by storm appears on its home ice. A city that for years longed for a major sports franchise has truly embraced the Knights.”It’s so much different live than it is on TV. It’s a whole different experience,” said David Santangelo, a Las Vegas resident who is a season ticket holder and longtime hockey fan. ”People fall in love with it. So many people I talk to at work are saying that they didn’t know it was so exciting. People are really starting to learn about it now.”Santangelo, who was wearing a Knights jersey, was among hundreds who attended a party Monday in downtown Las Vegas to watch Game 3 of the Knights’ second-round playoff series against the San Jose Sharks. The Golden Knights have a 3-2 series lead after a 5-3 victory over San Jose on Friday night.For years Los Angeles Kings Hats Authentic , questions were raised over whether the tourist-driven city with a long history of hosting big events could support a big league team night after night. Gambling and a relatively small market size steered major franchises elsewhere. Before the Knights dropped the puck, there were naysayers even though initial ticket demand was high.Average game attendance at T-Mobile Arena is now 18,042. Tourists and comped high-rollers have surely caught games. So have tennis greats Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, rapper Lil Jon, poker pro Daniel Negreanu and slugger Bryce Harper before baseball season started. But defying some of those early predictions, it’s been regular residents and their children who have filled the stands game after game.The crowds bode well for the NFL’s Raiders, who are due to move to Sin City in 2020.The Knights – who were 200-1 at many sports books to win the Stanley Cup before the season began – proudly declare themselves Vegas Born. Their success on the ice has certainly influenced attendance, but it may also have to do with the city’s desperate need for fellowship around the time the season opened.The Knights’ home opener in October came only a few days after the city suffered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The team retired jersey No. 58 during its final home game of the regular season to honor the victims. A banner with 58 stars was hoisted into the rafters. The victims’ names were also projected on the ice.”I think because all the players are from different places and Las Vegas is a melting pot of people from different places, it’s just really brought community together to have our own team,” said fan Angel Ashby. ”This is a Vegas-born team. It isn’t from somewhere else.”Ashby had rooted for the Colorado Avalanche, but got rid of the jersey when the Knights arrived. She and her friends rotate hosting watch parties.The energy has existed at the arena from the beginning, but has progressively gotten louder with the success that followed. For the playoffs, the team has expanded the pregame festivities to include a huge knight’s helmet that is lowered from the rafters in front of the Vegas bench. The Golden Knights enter the ice through the front of the helmet.Some players toss pucks to their young fans before the game and some children in attendance will get sticks from select players after every game. And the popularity has spilled over from T-Mobile Arena to City National Arena Custom Los Angeles Kings Jerseys , the team’s practice facility. There, the Vegas Golden Knights Skating Academy has grown from less than 100 kids to nearly 1,000 seven months after its inception.Todd Pollock, vice president of ticketing and suites, said he did not expect the level of support the team has experienced in its debut season and wondered what took so long for Las Vegas to get a major franchise. The team had planned a three-day campaign for season-ticket packages for next season, but the organization canceled after the first day due to an overwhelming response.”What we’re seeing collectively this year absolutely, positively, I don’t think I could have scripted it any better than the way it’s currently playing out,” said Pollock, who worked in the same capacity with the Los Angeles Kings and the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.—