Gordie Howe leads a nostalgic list of historical Christmas Day points leaders in the NHL

The NHL hasn’t held a Christmas Day game since the 1971-72 season, and as a result, December 25th in sports has often been considered as the NBA’s day.

BarDown Staff

Gordie Howe , Getty Images

The NHL hasn’t held a Christmas Day game since the 1971-72 season, and as a result, December 25th in sports has often been considered as the NBA’s day.

But let’s not forget that the NHL factored into Christmas for half a century, with 125 total games in league history being played on the holiday. The league ran the numbers, and an impressive list of legends from the annals of hockey history lead the way in career points on Christmas Day — led by Gordie Howe.

The @NHL played 125 games on Christmas Day from 1920-21 to 1971-72 – the last season with a game on Dec. 25.@DetroitRedWings legend Gordie Howe has the most NHL appearances on Christmas Day – taking part in 16.8% of all Dec. 25 games in League history (21 of 125). #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/fw0XW29BVA
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 25, 2018

Would you like to see the NHL make a return to the Christmas Day slate of programming? Here at BarDown, we decided to draw up a dream lineup of games that we’d like to see for ourselves.

What would be your ideal Christmas day lineup of hockey games look like? 🎅🤔 @bardown

A post shared by TSN (@tsn_official) on Dec 24, 2018 at 1:54pm PST

Now, nothing against LeBron James and Steph Curry primetime showdowns, but sometimes, you just need some puck in your life.

If you wanted a further trip down the Gordie Howe memory lane, a recent video by SB Nation retold the story of the Howe-led Red Wings as they took on a rather unusual opponent: the inmates of the Marquette Branch Prison.