Riley Sheahan Couldn't Score All Season, but Got the Final Goal at Joe Louis Arena

Riley Sheahan just made history and, more importantly perhaps, avoided making history, too.

Sheahan's second goal of the night late in the third period against New Jersey on Sunday will go in the record books as the last goal ever scored at the famous Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. His first tally of the night, however, may have been the biggest of his career, as he finally snapped a historically lengthy goalless drought. Sheahan was unable to find the back of the net even once through 79 games this season entering Sunday, after scoring 14 last season and 13 the year before.

It's not as if the Red Wings centre is devoid of talent, but last month he set the new NHL standard for most shots on goal by a forward without scoring, putting 86 pucks on net this season without a goal. Since he set the mark in early March, Sheahan had put another 21 shots on goal before finally putting one in, helping him to avoid being the only forward ever to play a whole season and record over 100 shots without scoring.

There's been just two forwards since the 1967-68 season who have scored one goal despite playing at least 70 games while recording 100 shots in a season (Shawn Thornton in 2009-10 and Tim Jackman in 2011-12), so Sheahan's second goal of the night got him clear of sharing a mark with two of the least-skilled forwards of the last decade.

The slump was an inexplicable one for Sheahan who possesses anything but the stone-like hands that Thornton and Jackman did, and came into this season with a strong offensive pedigree and averaging 10-plus goals per season after being selected with Detroit's first pick in the 2010 draft.

If he's looking for some positives, though, there's at least a couple. For starters, there's no way his production will be this low again next season if he gets the same amount of chances, and secondly, Sheahan is rounding into one of the best last-game-of-the-season performers in the NHL. His last goal before Sunday came a full year ago to the day during the team's final game of the season against the Rangers.