I'm going to do these, I assure you.  It might take a while to do all of them, and some of them might be pretty low on information, but they'll be making a comeback in the next day or two in full force.  

I figured it might be interesting to look at a simple list of all the first goals scored so far this year, which teams have the most, and the rate at which they occur.  Perhaps I'm a bit naively surprised at the distribution of them so far...  I figured they would slow down a bit, but that hasn't really happened.

#	Player	Date	Team	Against	Nat.
1	Jordan Eberle	Oct 7	Oilers	Flames
2	Derek Stepan	Oct 9	Rangers	Sabres
3	Tyler Seguin	Oct 10	Bruins	Coyotes
4	Nick Leddy	Oct 11	Blackhawks	Sabres
5	Nino Niederreiter	Oct 13	Islanders	Capitals
6	Eric Tangradi	Oct 15	Penguins	Islanders
7	Matt Taormina	Oct 15	Devils	Avalanche
8	Jordan Caron	Oct 16	Bruins	Devils
9	Magnus Paajarvi	Oct 16	Oilers	Flames
10	Cam Fowler	Oct 17	Ducks	Coyotes
11	Marcus Johansson	Oct 19	Capitals	Bruins
12	Jeff Skinner	Oct 20	Hurricanes	Kings
13	Andrei Loktionov	Oct 20	Kings	Hurricanes
14	John McCarthy	Oct 23	Sharks	Oilers
15	Kyle Wilson	Oct 25	Blue Jackets	Flyers
16	Dana Tyrell	Oct 27	Lightning	Penguins
17	Taylor Hall	Oct 28	Oilers	Blue Jackets
18	Matt Martin	Oct 29	Islanders	Canadiens
19	Alex Burmistrov	Oct 29	Thrashers	Sabres
20	David Liffiton	Oct 30	Avalanche	Blue Jackets

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Magnus Paajarvi is a rare breed of player.  It's not often someone breaks onto the international scene like he did at age 16, and it's not often a NHL team has to come out and say that they will not be making one of their teenage players available to participate in his FOURTH World Junior Hockey Championship.  It's also not often a player changes his name when he reaches the NHL:  It's hard to refer to him as anything but "MPS" for those of us who got used to talking about him before he made the bigs.  The Svensson name lives on in his older brother, Bjorn Svensson, a former import player for the Saskatoon Blades and current player for Timra of the Elitserien.  But the Paajarvi half must be where all the talent came from:  poor Bjorn got the short end of the stick on that front.

Paajarvi-Svensson, as he was known then, broke onto the Swedish hockey scene as a 14 year old prodigy, playing in the finals of the country's top youth hockey tournament (TV-Pucken) while making his debut in the U20 SuperElit league (Sweden's top junior circuit) as part of the Malmo Redhawks' program.  He also made some international appearances at the U16 level for Sweden, recording 5 points in 8 games.  At 15, he was improving on the totals at each of those levels, and the inevitable eventually happened at age 16:  he turned pro, and was on the national U20 team.  His debut with Timra of the Elitserien made him the fourth youngest player in the league's history, and his appearance on the U20 team made him the youngest Swede to ever accomplish that feat.  And it wasn't a bad year for the Swedes, either:  they won their first of back-to-back silver medals that year in the Czech Republic.  For more on Paajarvi's ascent in Sweden, you can visit his no longer updated website.

As with a lot of elite players, the more visible you are, the more your faults get picked apart come draft day.  The Edmonton Oilers gladly picked him up at 10th overall in 2009 and let him play in the Elitserien one more year at age 18.  This drop occurred despite dominating the U18 Worlds with 12 points in 6 games just two months earlier, as well as posting 7 points in 6 games at the U20's four months before that.  He's improved every year:  at 18, he posted 29 points and 12 goals in the Elitserien, plus 10 points in six games coming out of the tougher pool at the 2010 World Juniors.  He also made his national men's team debut at the 2010 World Championships, and ended up being one of the tournament's All-Stars with nine points and five goals in nine games for the bronze medal winners.  All indications were that he was ready for the next challenge:  the NHL.

Things haven't gone swimmingly for Paajarvi in his first few games in the NHL, but one thing has been a constant in his career:  he starts early, but continually improves.  Really, only his surprising dominance at the World Championships was out of character for him, as he usually takes a while before the offense finally comes.  Blessed with great speed and hockey smarts, it's kind of funny how his first goal, scored on Oct. 16 vs. the Oilers' arch rival:  the Calgary Flames.  Have a look after the jump:

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Somewhere along the way, Jordan Caron became the other kid.  His skill level, size and work ethic should have made him the kid everyone talked about, but a combination of factors always seems to be working against him.  He's gone to all the right programs:  midget hockey at Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, a junior hockey career with the Rimouski Océnaic of the QMJHL, and a stint with Canada's U20 team at the 2010 World Junior Hockey championship. But he's always been, at best, the second most talked about player his age group on his team.  

After his stint at Notre Dame, Caron followed somewhat in the footsteps of fellow alumni Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards in joining the Rimouski Océanic of the QMJHL.  Caron was picked 8th overall in the league's draft, so he came into town with considerable hype, and he justified it with a solid rookie season of 18 goals and 40 points in 59 games.  However, a funny thing happened:  because of his later November birthday, a fellow 16 year old rookie gained more attention on the team quickly, even though he was putting up less impressive numbers.  That would be Patrice Cormier, who stood out for his physical edge and defensive play down the middle, a nice compliment to Caron's skill set.  Cormier went on to be drafted in the second round, 54th overall, after a  41 point sophomore campaign in 2007-08, while Caron had to wait a year for his draft date.  Just the matter of their skill set, and their less than five months of age separation, made Cormier a more common household name in Canadian hockey circles in 2008-09 than Caron.  Cormier made the Canadian U20 World Junior team in 2009, while Caron was still trying to work up his draft stock in Rimouski.  Cormier helped play a depth role for Canada's fifth straight gold medal winning team in Ottawa, despite the fact that back in Rimouski, Caron was outscoring him.  Caron scored 36 goals and added 67 points, which helped him earn a higher draft ranking than his teammate:  going 24th overall in the first round to the Boston Bruins.

The next year, Caron and Cormier followed each other around.  Cormier was named captain of the U20 team, while Caron was selected to a depth role.  Cormier finished with five points while Caron had four in the silver medal cause.  Just days later, both were dealt to the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in a blockbuster QMJHL trade deadline deal, but it was Cormier who made the immediate impact, for less than celebratory reasons.  So while all the talk was about Cormier's cheap shot on Michael Tam, Caron continued on to try and justify the blockbuster trade for Rouyn-Noranda on his own, and he did quite well, scoring 17 goals and adding 33 points in just 23 games, plus 7 goals and 18 points in the QMJHL playoffs. 

Unfortunately, that playoff run only lasted 11 games, and Caron was now looking at turning professional.  He broke camp with the talented Bruins forward corps, but all the talk was about another teenage rookie on the team:  Tyler Seguin.  Seguin scored first, but Caron didn't wait too much longer, scoring in his second NHL game on Oct. 16, 2010, in New Jersey against Martin Brodeur:

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When I said before the profile on Eric Tangradi's First NHL Goal that we'd be getting into the realm of virtually unknown players, I was really thinking about Matt Taormina.  Matt's journey to the NHL might have provided a first:  I'm willing to go out on a limb that no one had ever made the NHL who had played his junior hockey in Texarkana, Texas.  But in 2004-05, that's where Matt's notable hockey history began:  a season with the Texarkana Bandits of the NAHL, a Tier II Jr. circuit similar to the USHL.  The Bandits don't exist anymore, but Taormina helped parlay his season there into a scholarship at Providence College, a Christian university in Rhode Island.  The NHL rarely looks at players coming from that program, and aside from his junior year, Taormina didn't provide any amazing statistics to help his cause.  He was an undersized defenseman in a second tier hockey program, and while he might have been their best defenseman, he still looked a long way from the NHL.  So when he graduated in 2009, there wasn't a long list of suitors for his services as a professional.  No one was willing to give him a NHL contract, so he did the next best thing:  he signed a professional tryout with the Binghamton Senators with hopes of catching on with a AHL team for 2009-10.

The New Jersey Devils, however, do tend to pick up on more NCAA prospects (particularly from the East coast) than other organizations.  While they didn't sign him to finish off the 2008-09 season, in August 2009, they announced the signing of Taromina to an AHL level contract.  Taormina took off with the Lowell Devils, recording a 50 point rookie season, which helped earn him his first NHL contract as the Devils signed him during the Olympic break in February.  Taormina finished the season with the team, and entered the 2010 training camp as a longshot possibility to make the team.  With several injuries to blueliners, including veterans like Anton Volchenkov and Bryce Salvador, a spot opened up for Taormina to start the season with the team.  His offensive instincts were in short supply amongst Devils blueliners, so it even resulted in power play time.  With star attraction (or is it distraction?) Ilya Kovalchuk manning the point with him, Taromina was set up for a one timer against the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 15, 2010, to accentuate just how far, how fast, he had come as a professional:

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Most of the players that have been featured in this series to date have well known backgrounds, but now we're starting to see some lesser known players show up.  Eric Tangradi of the Pittsburgh Penguins is a solid prospect, but he's not really a star in the making, and his bio at this point in his career is pretty thin on details:  He was born in Philadelphia, played high school hockey in a private preparatory school outside of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania called Wyoming Seminary, before joining the Ontario Hockey League's Belleville Bulls for his draft season.  As a rookie in Belleville, he didn't exactly shine:  his totals were a modest 5 goals and 20 points for the regular season, but in the playoffs he stepped up in a big way.  During a long postseason run, he had 17 points in 15 games, and as a result of his strong finish, to go along with his impressive size at 6'3", 200+ lbs., he shot up the draft rankings to be selected in the 2nd round, 42nd overall by the Anaheim Ducks in 2007.  The Ducks already had selected one of his Belleville teammates the previous year in Matt Belesky, which probably helped him get noticed by their scouts.  In his two years to complete his junior career, Tangradi played more like the playoff breakout star than the struggling rookie, notching 148 points in 111 regular season games, plus 39 in 37 playoff games to finish his career.  In his final year, he was named captain of the team, succeeding Belesky, while also participating in the 2009 U20 World Junior Championships on Team USA, where they finished fifth.  He had definitely established himself as a player to notice in the junior ranks, and so it may not have come as a surprise that one of the Pennsylvania based NHL teams had him on their radar.

At the 2009 NHL trade deadline, Anaheim traded Tangradi's rights to Pittsburgh along with winger Chris Kunitz for defenseman Ryan Whitney.  In the trade, Pittsburgh hoped they had secured a winger to play with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin for both the present and the future, and the team went on to win the Stanley Cup just months later.  Tangradi turned professional, but he wasn't NHL ready just yet.  That knowledge of the Wilkes-Barre area from prep school came in quite handy: he was assigned to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League, where he had a solid rookie season with 17 goals and 39 points.  He got into the last game of the NHL regular season, against the New York Islanders, on April 11, 2010, as a reward for his efforts.  Heading into training camp this season, he was tabbed as a likely candidate to crack the roster with the team, which he did (even though there was some bizarre, salary cap related moves that had to happen first).  He got his first career point in Pittsburgh's first win of the season in New Jersey (their 3rd game), and with the team struggling to get their first win at the brand new Consol Energy Center, Tangradi needed to get on the scoresheet again. 

And as they say, just put the puck on net, and good things can happen:

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I'll always have a special place in my hockey loving heart for Nino Niederreiter.  When he and Team Switzerland stepped onto the ice for the 2010 World Junior Championships this past January, there wasn't much thought given to the players involved.  The scouting focused reporters were aware of him, but he was still in the curiousity phase at that point, not even considered a surefire first round talent, just a potential one.  The focus on Switzerland had more to do with Luca Sbisa, who had played in the NHL, and really that was all most of the media was willing to acknowledge them for:  best save the ink for when Russia and Sweden arrive, especially since the Swiss weren't likely to even make it to the playoff round.  After the Canada-Switzerland round robin game, only one reporter asked Swiss coach Jakob Kölliker a single question in the post-game media conference with both coaches, and it was about Sbisa's health (he left the game, and then the tournament, with a shoulder injury).  When the team's other good defenseman, Roman Josi, pulled out of the tournament with a bad wrist, Nino finally emerged from the shadows and took control, leading the team to a surprising victory over Slovakia to make the playoffs, and then combined with Benjamin Conz, made for a huge upset over Russia in the quarterfinals to secure a 4th place showing.  The two players were named to the tournament All-Star team, reflecting the huge roles they played in overcoming tremendous odds to push a team that wasn't in the top group at all the year before to playing for a medal. 

So El Nino, as he was dubbed at the tournament, went from a probable late first rounder to a surefire top 10 pick, eventually being selected 5th overall by the New York Islanders.  It was the highest a Swiss player had ever gone in the NHL draft, and he was definitely the first Swiss player who had reached recognizable name status in the hockey world before he turned 18.  The Islanders, building more for their future than current success, decided to give Niederrieter a try at the NHL level right off the bat.  In his nine game trial, he managed to become the youngest player in Islanders history to score a goal, and obviously the youngest Swiss to ever score as well:

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Sometimes, it just happens.  Jordan Eberle and Tyler Seguin may have created spectacular moments with speed and skill, and Derek Stepan decided to hang out in front of the net to get some easy ones, but for a blueliner like Nick Leddy, it's as much about getting a shot through to the net as putting one on goal.  In just his second NHL game, back on October 11 against the Buffalo Sabres, Leddy stepped up as a loose puck came out into the slot and unleashed a slapshot.  The shot pinballed off of two Sabres' skates and into the net:

The journey to the first NHL game, and first NHL goal, is sometimes the culmination of years of hard work, dedication, and the obvious starting point to a long career.  For a player like Leddy, however, it's merely a part of his journey.  A milestone, no doubt, but hardly the end game, or even the start of something special.  Two years ago, Leddy was playing for his high school in his hometown of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  His dominance of the high school circuit earned him the coveted Mr. Hockey award (not named after the actual Mr. Hockey) as the most outstanding senior player in Minnesota high schools.  He had it all for a Minnesota kid:  he was headed to play for the Golden Gophers in the NCAA, and was even drafted 16th overall by the Minnesota Wild.  Near the end of his freshman year, Leddy's NHL rights were dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks along with Kim Johnsson for Cam Barker.  So much for living in Minnesota his entire life.

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I'm glad I got drafted first because no one remembers number two.

-Alexandre Daigle, 1993

The NHL has a long history of All-Star caliber players being selected 2nd overall, and while Daigle may have been right that the general public tends to forget draft ranking over time (aside from first), there have been several number two overalls that have captured the public's conscious, ironically none more famous than the one selected after Daigle, Chris Pronger (though his Hartford Whalers career wasn't too memorable).  In 2008, Drew Doughty had to take a back seat to Steven Stamkos, although there probably should have been a debate.  In 2009, it was a full year of John Tavares vs. Victor Hedman talk, with a late push by Matt Duchesne for good measure.  But after an impressive start, what had been dubbed the Taylor Hall sweepstakes quickly morphed into a full on Taylor vs. Tyler dogfight, with Seguin even leading the Central Scouting rankings at the mid-point last year.  The two players will be forever joined at the hip, and probably even more so since their selection influenced two Canadian franchises.  The Edmonton Oilers finished last, and had to choose between the two, picking Hall.  Meanwhile, the Toronto Maple Leafs infamously dealt their first rounder in September 2009 as part of a trade for Phil Kessel of the Boston Bruins.  When the Leafs tanked, the hockey media had quite a story on their hands, and the Bruins were left with the "runner-up" prize. 

So Seguin, bizarrely, got to join a team that finished 1st in the Eastern Conference just a year before, and had made the playoffs the past 3 years, while Hall had to join a rebuilding team that hadn't made the playoffs since losing Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.  The timing of Seguin's arrival couldn't have been better for Boston, who not only lost a lot of offense in dealing Kessel, but lost their top scoring centre to post-concussion syndrome in Marc Savard for a very long period of time.  If not for Savard's injury, there was talk that Seguin might not be able to crack a centre corps that also contained a pair of 2010 Olympians in Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.  When training camp ended, it was clear Seguin had a spot on the team for the start of the season, and Krejci got to play the role of hosts for the team as they started the season in Prague.  Of all the places to score your first NHL goal, O2 Arena in Prague probably didn't come up in Seguin's dreams, but hey, he'll take it.  A shorthanded goal (killing a penalty with a 2-1 lead in the 3rd period of your second NHL game is quite an accomplishment in its own right) where he caught Keith Yandle pinching and snuck past David Schlemko leads us to our second beautiful first NHL goal of the year:

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