In just a few short hours, the Edmonton Oilers will honour Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ahead of his 1,000th game.

We’ve been celebrating Nuge Week the last number of days, leading up to tonight’s game against the St. Louis Blues.

Jason Gregor did a great one-on-one interview with Nugent-Hopkins this week, while there’s a plethora of other things touched on, like his biggest milestones, his top 10 moments, to Baggedmilk singing praise and even some quotes from his former teammate Ryan Jones.

To cap off the week, I polled some Oilersnation writers about their favourite Nugent-Hopkins memories.

What are your favourite memories of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins?

My favourite Nuge memory has to be when he scored his first career hat trick in only his third NHL game. Being from Burnaby, Nugent-Hopkins had to be fired up to play his hometown Canucks, and to have him pop three goals against them was the first step toward my career-long love for the guy. At that point, Nuge looked like he could still be playing Bantam, but he had this quiet wizardry about him that really landed for me in a big way. And even though that hat trick came all the way back on October 15th, 2011, it was undoubtedly the moment when I thought that this was my guy. He’s not the biggest player on the ice, and he’s not always the most skilled, but the way he developed into a Swiss Army Knife for the franchise and the 200 head coaches he’s played for is nothing short of amazing. The guy is criminally underrated, and I very much look forward to writing countless more articles to sing his praises. I love the guy, and have since Steve Tambellini called his name out with the first overall pick.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins hits 1,000 games Sunday, and while there are plenty of highlights to choose from, let’s talk about the real defining moment: that time he fought Justin Holl. Nobody likes the Leafs, and apparently that includes Nugent-Hopkins.

It was February 27, 2021. Oilers versus Maple Leafs. Justin Holl took a run at someone, and Nuge decided he’d had enough. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — the soft-spoken, mild-mannered center who avoids the penalty box — dropped the gloves.

Was it a technical masterpiece? No. But that’s not the point. The point is that Nugent-Hopkins, a guy who’d rather make a........

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