"If you're in the mood to get a word snob all huffy, just throw words like "amazing" and "unique" around flippantly. Nothing gets their blood boiling quite like hyperbolic statements that bend – or even break – the rules of language.

With those irritable folks in mind, I cannot say that Sam Gagner truly experienced a "unique" night on Thursday. That would state that he accomplished something one-of-a-kind, which isn't totally true.

Instead, I'll go the safer routes and say that he did something unusual and extremely unexpected. Sure, there's no denying that the playmaking forward has the pedigree to produce – he was the sixth overall pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, after all – but if you were asked to pick an Edmonton Oilers player who would score eight points in a single game, where would Gagner rank?

My guess is that you'd rank Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Smyth, Ales Hemsky and maybe even Shawn Horcoff ahead of Gagner. Some might even throw a defenseman like Ryan Whitney ahead of Gagner if they were feeling especially brazen.

That's the beauty of sports and why George Berman loves saying "That's why they play the game." Gagner almost doubled his goal total (five to nine) and bumped his points to 30 as he scored four goals and four assists for that eight-point night.

Doing so made him one of 11 players to accomplish such a task in NHL history, including former Oilers legends Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey. Other hockey legends who managed the feat include Mario Lemieux and Maurice "Rocket" Richard. Gagner's happens to be the first player to pull it off in 23 years, by the way.

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