Gameday 40 (Wed, 27 Feb) - Results

Montreal v Toronto 5-2 - Revenge was sweet for the Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens avenged a 6-0 home loss to Toronto on Feb. 9 by dominating the Maple Leafs for 60 minutes in a 5-2 victory at Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night. Max Pacioretty scored twice as Montreal improved to 7-0-2 since that embarrassing loss. Brendan Gallagher's tip-in of Josh Gorges' shot 9:08 into the third period broke a 2-2 deadlock. Pacioretty scored his second of the night with 5:34 to play, and Brian Gionta added an unassisted goal with 2:26 remaining to seal a crucial victory after the Canadiens had dropped their first two games of their season series to Toronto. Montreal was clearly the more dominant team throughout the game, even though the score was tied 2-2 after 40 minutes. The Canadiens stifled the Maple Leafs at every opportunity and by the midway point of the second period, they were outshooting the Leafs 22-5. Gallagher gave the Canadiens a lead they would not relinquish after David Desharnais won a draw and got the puck to Gorges for a point shot. The Maple Leafs were unhappy with the play because their center, Tyler Bozak, didn't have his stick on the ice when linesman Jean Morin dropped the puck. Pacioretty made it a two-goal gave by beating Ben Scrivens high to the short side from well inside the right circle. Gionta's goal drew cheers from the sizeable number of Canadiens fans who made the trip. Pacioretty put the Canadiens ahead 2-1 with his first of the night at 4:17 of the second period, six seconds before a five-minute power play expired. Montreal got the long power play when Mike Brown was called for a checking from behind major and a game misconduct for a hit on Gorges. Pacioretty almost scored early into the long power play but missed an open net. He made up for it in the final seconds when Scrivens stopped P.K Subban's shot, only to have the rebound hit Pacioretty's shin pads and land in the net. Scrivens did his best to keep his team in the game, making a huge save on Gallagher on a 2-on-1 a few minutes later. He finished with 35 saves, while Montreal's Carey Price stopped 21 shots, including a penalty shot awarded to Mikhail Grabovski at 11:45 of the middle period when the Toronto center was hauled down by Alexei Emelin on a semi-breakaway. Price smoothly turned away Grabovski's forehand deke. Clarke MacArthur evened the score at 2-2 at 15:47, finishing off a tic-tac-toe passing play with Cody Franson and Nazem Kadri for his fifth goal of the season. Kadri now has a three-game point streak and leads the team in scoring with 18 points. The teams traded goals through the first 20 minutes, although the Canadiens carried the play. Toronto capitalized on a good forecheck and a lucky bounce to open the scoring. Frazer McLaren had the puck go off his body and behind Price as he bore down on the Canadiens crease, going between Subban and Travis Moen. Brown started the play by following his dump-in and nailing Gorges in the corner; the puck then squirted out to McLaren, who scored his second of the season at 13:44. Emelin tied the game at 16:56 during a delayed penalty call. The Russian defenseman took a pass near the blue line and moved into the high slot before zipping a low shot through traffic that beat Scrivens for his first goal of the season. There was plenty of physical play to satiate the capacity crowd in the first period. One of the most notable of the 31 total hits was when McLaren sent Moen into the broadcast area between the benches. It was one of 20 hits by the Maple Leafs in the period. Montreal got in on the action as well, as former Maple Leaf Colby Armstrong laid a solid check on Michael Kostka deep in Toronto's zone. Newly acquired Michael Ryder played right wing on a line with Lars Eller and Alex Galchenyuk in his first game since being traded from Dallas on Tuesday. He saw 14:34 of ice time and was minus-1. Ryder skated out with his familiar No. 73 jersey that he has worn throughout this career. Earlier in the day Gallagher gave up the number to the veteran forward and now sports No. 11.

Washington v Philadelphia 1-4 - The Philadelphia Flyers certainly looked like an energized bunch with the arrival of Simon Gagne, who was a factor in the Flyers' 4-1 defeat of the visiting Washington Capitals on Wednesday. Gagne, who spent his first 10 NHL seasons with the Flyers, was acquired from the Kings on Tuesday in exchange for a 2013 fourth-round draft pick. He took an overnight flight from Los Angeles, landing not long after sunrise, and said he tried to get as much sleep as he could before the game. He was welcomed back with a tribute video and a number of loud ovations. Later, he thanked the crowd the best way possible, by scoring his first goal in more than 15 months. Claude Giroux had a goal and an assist, and Wayne Simmonds and Maxime Talbot also had goals for Philadelphia. Joel Ward scored the Capitals' lone goal. Goalie Braden Holtby, who stopped all 33 shots he faced in Washington's 3-0 win against Carolina on Tuesday, was pulled in the second period after allowing four goals on 18 shots. The extra boost showed itself in the game's first minute, as Giroux scored his seventh goal of the season just 23 seconds into the game. Scott Hartnell, who had a pair of assists, fired a shot from the left side that Holtby stopped, with the rebound going behind the Washington net. Hartnell chased after it and poked it away from the Caps' Mike Green, and then from his knees backhanded a pass off Karl Alzner's skates to Giroux, who was unmarked in the left slot. The goal also extended Giroux's point-scoring streak to six games, including three in a row with at least two points. It also marked the first time in five games the Flyers had scored the game's first goal, and snapped the Capitals' streak of eight straight scoring the game's first goal. Part of the Flyers' strong effort can be credited to playing a tired team in the Capitals, who were skating on back-to-back nights and for the fourth time in seven days. After the Flyers made it 2-0 on Simmonds' power-play goal, the Flyers got another jolt of energy from Gagne. Late in a Philadelphia power play, Briere passed the puck from behind the net to Brayden Schenn. Schenn fought off Joey Crabb in the slot and backhanded a pass to Gagne, who scored his first goal since Nov. 17, 2011, when he was with the Los Angeles Kings. Gagne played with nine players on the current roster, and having him back in the dressing room certainly provided a lift. Talbot provided his own momentum when he scored his first goal of the season at 14:55 of the second to make it 4-0. Mike Ribeiro cleared the puck out of the Washington zone right to Bruno Gervais in the neutral zone. He moved it across to Luke Schenn while the Flyers' forwards cleared the zone. Schenn then sent the puck to Talbot, who took two strides over the blue line, wound up and fired a slap shot that went off Holtby's glove on its way into the net. Phillip Grubauer, called up from Hershey of the American Hockey League earlier Wednesday with Michal Neuvirth sick, made his National Hockey League debut when he replaced Holtby after Talbot's goal. He stopped all 14 shots he faced. Ilya Bryzgalov, who finished with 23 saves, had his attempt at a shutout ended with 2:09 left in the third. Jay Beagle beat Ruslan Fedotenko on a faceoff in the Philadelphia end, drawing the puck back to Tom Poti. Bryzgalov stopped his shot from the right point, but the puck bounced off his chest and before he could control it, Ward tipped it away from him and scored.

Nashville v Anaheim 1-5 - Kyle Palmieri and the Anaheim Ducks will be sorry to see February turn into March. Palmieri snapped a 10-game drought by scoring three consecutive goals for his first NHL hat trick as the Ducks capped the third 11-win month in franchise history by routing the weary Nashville Predators 5-1 at Honda Center on Wednesday night. The Ducks have won seven in a row at Honda Center after losing their home opener to Vancouver. The finished February with an 11-2-0 mark and will enter March on top of the Pacific Division with a 14-3-1 record after their seventh win in eight games. Nick Bonino and Saku Koivu also scored for the Ducks, who swept the three-game season series from the Predators. First-year Swedish goaltender Viktor Fasth, who lost for the first time in nine career decisions when the Ducks were beaten 5-2 at Los Angeles on Monday, stopped 20 shots and allowed only a second-period goal by Craig Smith. Nashville, which began a three-game trip through California, lost for the third time in four games. The usually stingy Predators have allowed four or more goals in each of their past three games. The Ducks jumped on the Predators early, scoring twice in 61 seconds to take a 2-0 lead before the game was four minutes old. Bonino put the Ducks ahead with his fifth of the season at 2:48 thanks to some hard work by Emerson Etem. The rookie forward raced in on the forecheck and took the puck away from goalie Pekka Rinne behind the Nashville net. He slid the puck to Bonino, who stepped around Paul Gaustad and snapped home a 10-foot shot before Rinne could get back into the net. Palmieri's first goal was a fine individual effort after Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry worked the puck up the ice. Palmieri, flying up the left wing, took Perry's pass in stride at the Nashville line, cut past All-Star defenseman Shea Weber and stepped around Rinne before sliding the puck into a half-empty net at 3:49. His second goal, at 16:57, was much more of a group effort. Getzlaf won an offensive-zone draw and got the puck to Perry behind the net to the right of Rinne. Perry zipped a passout to Palmieri in the slot for a one-timer that Rinne had no chance to stop. The same combination made it 4-0 at 1:07 of the second period. With the Ducks on the power play, Getzlaf controlled the puck and slid a pass to Perry near the left post. Perry's cross-crease pass found Palmieri racing down the right side for a high shot into a wide-open net to complete his first NHL hat trick. Nashville finally got on the board midway through the middle period thanks to a tic-tac-toe passing play. Rich Clune carried deep into the Anaheim zone and dropped a pass to Kevin Klein in the right circle, setting up a 2-on-1 down low. Klein's pass across the slot found Smith for a one-timer past Fasth at 9:27. It was Smith's third of the season and second in two games. Fasth preserved the three-goal lead with 3:16 left in the period by gloving David Legwand's rocket from the high slot after a giveaway by Anaheim defenseman Luca Sbisa. Koivu crashed the net and swatted home the rebound of Francois Beauchemin's power-play slapper with 39.9 seconds remaining for a 5-1 lead after two periods. Chris Mason played the third period for Nashville after Rinne stopped only 16 of 21 shots.

Detroit v Los Angeles 1-2 - There was no last-minute breakdown this time for the Los Angeles Kings. Anze Kopitar left that memory behind. Kopitar scored on a terrific leave-behind move on Jimmy Howard with 4:48 left to lift the Kings past the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1, in spotlight game between the two Western Conference heavyweights. Dwight King fed a wide-open Kopitar from the boards after Trevor Lewis mucked it free as L.A. completed a comeback from 1-0 down for its fifth straight win. It was redemption for the Feb.10 meeting in which Detroit scored the game winner with 4.5 seconds remaining although the Kings played one of their best games of the season. Detroit could almost see the finish line but a precarious 1-0 lead vanished when it handed Los Angeles its second two-man advantage on Pavel Datsyuk's faceoff violation. Jeff Carter made a great redirect on Mike Richards' shot that slipped under Howard's left pad at 10:26 to give Carter goals in five straight games, one shy of his career high. Detroit's 1-0 lead looked more vulnerable when Justin Abdelkader began a cafeteria line to the penalty box in the second period, with a boarding of Jake Muzzin 200 feet from his own net. Datsyuk and Jonathan Ericsson joined him with tripping and hooking penalties, respectively. The Kings' 24th-ranked power play managed just three shots on goal during two minutes' worth of the two-man advantage. Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall led the way with a combined 5:13 minutes played on the penalty kill, and L.A. walked into its locker room still scoreless after 40 minutes. At the morning skate, Sutter bounced around the hallway to remind his players of the early start time, they usually start home games at 7:30 p.m. PT, but they began as if their body clocks were off. L.A. needed to kill two early penalties and was outshot 11-1 by the time Kyle Quincey's shot bounced straight up off Slava Voynov's stick in front of the goal, and glanced off Jonathan Bernier's mask into the net at 9:42. Quincey's first goal since March 12, 2012 came in his return to the lineup from an ankle injury. Detroit also saw Johan Franzen return to the lineup, along with Brendan Smith. Valtteri Filppula sat out with a sore shoulder. Detroit saw its road power play drought reach 0 for 31, which matched the longest such stretch to start a season since 1938-39.