It's not as if Marcus Pettersson never had scored a goal before.
Heck, he'd gotten one as recently as, well ... uh, Oct. 23.
And this wasn't the first time he accumulated three points in a game.
That's something else he did on Oct. 23.
So no, none of this was new for Pettersson.
Well, except for one thing that he hadn't managed during his previous 293 NHL appearances.
And might not again, no matter how long he is in the league.
He was assessed a penalty for goaltender interference.
Generally, if Pettersson does something to impede a goaltender, it is one who's wearing the same sweater he is.
Not this time.
With just over seven minutes to go in the opening period -- and with two points already on his personal line score -- Pettersson took a feed from Chad Ruhwedel and moved down the slot.
He deked around Columbus defenseman Gavin Bayreuther and swooped through a portion of the left circle before cutting toward the net and trying to slide a backhander past goaltender Elvis Merzlikins.
Merzlikins stopped the shot and, a split-second later, did the same with Pettersson, whose momentum carried him into the crease.
"Maybe it was (a penalty), maybe it wasn't," Pettersson said. "When you run into a goalie, it's going to get called, so I agree with it."
While the sequence that landed him in the penalty box might have been Pettersson's most impressive of the night, he came by all three of his points honestly.
He assisted on Evgeni Malkin's goal at 3:51 of the opening period, when Pettersson's wraparound attempt at the right post led to the puck ending up in front of the net, allowing Malkin to swat a rebound past J-F Berube, who started the game in goal for Columbus.
Pettersson drove Berube to the bench a few minutes later, beating him from the inner edge of the right circle to make it 3-0. He then got his second assist of the night at 18:54 of the second, as his wrist shot from above the left circle caromed off Brian Boyle and into the net.
Pettersson's prolific output -- he was the only player on either team with three points -- was a by-product of how assertive he was in the offensive zone throughout the game.
"I don't know that it was the result of him doing anything different," Mike Sullivan said. "I think he's just taking what the game gives him. ... Marcus is a pretty smart player. He sees the ice pretty well.
"Part of it might be that we had, I thought, significant offensive-zone time, and that gives those guys an opportunity to get involved more, offensively. Jumping off the offensive blue line, and things of that nature."
Pettersson finished with three shots on goal. Not a particularly lofty total, but a veritable rampage for a guy who had just 80 in his previous 71 games.
"(Pettersson) had quite a few looks today," Evan Rodrigues said. "It's Game 82, and things were opening up a bit. He was picking his spots."
Indeed, Pettersson's involvement in the offense clearly was calculated, rather than a series of high-risk gambles.
"it's more picking my spots and I thought I was doing that well tonight," he said. "You can be aggressive, and still be on the safe side. ... I thought I had some good looks, where I didn't chase a play that wasn't there. I took what I was given. Got some good bounces, too."
All of that added up to one of the few occasions in his career when Pettersson was his club's leading scorer.
"It might have been one of his better games, offensively, that he's played here," Sullivan said.
At least since Oct. 23.
