Gameday 70 (Fri, 29 Mar) - Results

New Jersey v Tampa Bay 4-5 - Steve Stamkos is one of the NHL's most feared snipers. But the two-time Rocket Richard winner knows how to be a playmaker as well. Stamkos could have tried for his third goal of the night with time winding down in regulation and the Tampa Bay Lightning scrambling for the tying goal against the New Jersey Devils. Instead, he found a wide-open Alex Killorn in the right circle for the tying goal with 15.1 seconds left to force overtime, and shootout goals by Teddy Purcell and Victor Hedman gave the Lightning a 5-4 victory in new coach Jon Cooper's debut behind the bench. Stamkos, the NHL leader with 25 goals after his pair on Friday night, crossed up the defense with his perfect feed. The Lightning trailed 2-0 and 4-2 as the Devils scored goals at even strength, on a power play, shorthanded and on a penalty shot. Purcell and Hedman then scored against Brodeur in the shootout while Mathieu Garon stopped Travis Zajac and Patrik Elias. The single point gave the seventh-place Devils a three-point lead on the New York Rangers and Islanders in the Eastern Conference playoff race. New Jersey is 2-6 in shootouts, including 0-3 with Brodeur, whose 42 wins in the tiebreaker are the second-most all-time. The victory extended Tampa Bay's home winning streak to four games. The Lightning (15-18-1) are four points out of the eighth and final playoff berth. New Jersey [15-11-8] began the third period with a 3-2 lead and promptly reopened a two-goal advantage for the second time at 2:39 on an unassisted shorthanded goal by Ryan Carter. He intercepted a pass from Stamkos and broke down the left side, firing the puck behind Garon from the top of the left circle. Stamkos' second goal of the game at 7:11 cut New Jersey's advantage to 4-3. After a conservatively played and scoreless first period, both teams opened up in the second, combining for 18 shots on net and five goals. New Jersey opened the scoring 5:50 into the period when Andrei Loktionov took a drop pass from Matt D'Agostini and beat Garon for his seventh goal of the season. Andy Greene also got an assist. Fifty-nine seconds later, New Jersey extended its lead to 2-0 when Tom Kostopoulos rifled a wrister past Garon on a penalty shot he was awarded after Hedman hooked him from behind as he broke in alone. That two-goal advantage disappeared quickly as Tampa Bay scored twice in a span of 2:28. Stamkos knocked the puck out of the air and behind Brodeur after the goaltender made a sprawling pad save on the first scoring attempt. Keith Aulie and St. Louis assisted. The equalizer came when Richard Panik sent an airborne breakout pass from the Lightning defensive zone that Nate Thompson corralled as he broke between two defenders before slipping slipped the puck into the net from Brodeur's left. It was Thompson's seventh goal of the season. Greene put the Devils back in front with a power-play goal at 13:58. Each goalie faced 25 shots and made 21 saves. It was a rewarding night for Cooper, who was hired Monday, one day after Guy Boucher was fired. The former coach of the organization's AHL team watched the Lightning beat Buffalo on Tuesday before taking over behind the bench Friday.

Anaheim v Chicago 2-1 - Maybe there should be a new favorite in the Western Conference. The Anaheim Ducks have stated their case emphatically. The Ducks stayed perfect this season against the first-place Chicago Blackhawks with a 2-1 win at United Center on Friday. Sheldon Souray scored the winner with 2:08 remaining in regulation and Jonas Hiller made 25 saves as Anaheim improved to 3-0-0 against Chicago and snapped its own four-game losing streak. Goalie Ray Emery took the loss for Chicago, his first in 13 decisions this season. The second-place Ducks, who needed third-period comebacks to beat the Blackhawks in their two previous meetings, moved within three points of Chicago in the Western Conference standings. More important, the Ducks swept the season series against the Blackhawks, and may own the mental edge over them as well. Chicago is 25-2-2 against every other team in the Western Conference, but just 0-2-1 against the Ducks. All three games have been tight, with Anaheim scoring in the waning moments of the third period to win in regulation or send the game to overtime. On Friday, the Blackhawks were also missing two of their stars, Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp, due to injury. Ryan, though, was among several players in Anaheim's dressing room who didn't want to read too much into the significance of being perfect against Chicago in the regular season. The Ducks will try to build on their first win in five games against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Sunday. That precedes a three-game mini-series over a span of five days against the Dallas Stars, starting Monday in Texas. Chicago can at least take solace in the fact that all three games against the Ducks have been relatively even. However, losing all three, especially the way they lost them, stings and won't provide the Blackhawks much in the way of confidence should these teams clash in the playoffs, perhaps the Western Conference Finals. The Ducks have been at their best late in all of the games against Chicago. The only difference Friday night was their formula for success. Instead of pushing hard for a third-period comeback as they did in the previous two meetings, the Ducks had to overcome giving up a game-tying power-play goal to Patrick Kane just 2:26 into the third period, which came seconds after Emery robbed Daniel Winnik of a shorthanded goal with an athletic left foot save.

The Ducks overcame the swing in momentum for three major reasons:

* Anaheim's top line of Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan and Corey Perry didn't give the Hawks a chance to use the momentum created by Emery's save and Kane's subsequent goal because they spent nearly 30 seconds of the very next shift in the offensive zone and created a couple of scoring chances.

* Hiller was perfect against all five shots he faced over the final 17 1/2 minutes of regulation, but more impressive was the Ducks' work in front of him to keep the slot clear and scoring chances down.

* The Ducks intelligently funneled the puck to Souray at the left point and he responded by using his 100 mile-per-hour shot to beat Emery for the winning goal. The quick passing of Francois Beauchemin to Getzlaf to Perry opened up a shooting lane for Souray.

Other than the two points earned Friday, most important to Anaheim was how it played in the first period. A strong start was the Ducks' main point of emphasis heading into the game, they had lost their previous four games in part because they were outscored 9-1 in the first 20 minutes. Perry opened the scoring with his 11th goal of the season just 75 seconds into the second period. The Ducks carried the lead until Emery's save led to Kane's game-tying power-play goal, but yet again they found a way to beat the Blackhawks with a strong finish.

Minnesota v Dallas 3-5 - Jaromir Jagr got his 1,000th NHL assist. The Dallas Stars got some revenge. Jagr became the 12th player in League history to reach 1,000 assists and the Stars avenged a 7-4 home loss to the Minnesota Wild four days earlier with a 5-3 victory Friday night that snapped the Wild's seven-game winning streak. It was a big change from Monday night, when the Stars started sloppily and fell apart down the stretch. Jamie Benn and Ray Whitney each had a goal and an assist for Dallas, which got a 30-save performance by Kari Lehtonen. Tomas Vincour, Erik Cole and Cody Eakin also scored for Dallas, which blew open a 2-2 tie after 40 minutes by scoring three unanswered goals before the Wild's Torrey Mitchell connected with 60 seconds remaining. After Cole scored 62 seconds into the final period to break the 2-2 tie, Jagr earned his historic assist by feeding Whitney, whose pass set up Benn's goal. The Stars struck first when with Dallas on the power play, Whitney blasted a slapper from near the right circle over the blocker of Wild goaltender Matt Hackett at 4:14 of the first period to make it 1-0. Dallas got the man advantage when Minnesota's Mikko Koivu was whistled for hooking the Stars' Vernon Fiddler, an infraction that sent the Dallas center careening into the left goal post. Fiddler headed to the dressing room after playing just two shifts and seeing just 1:21 of ice time with a lower-body injury. He did not return to the ice. Hackett, who finished with 28 saves, was recalled from Houston of the American Hockey League on Thursday and made his first NHL start of the season. Minnesota decided to leave starter Niklas Backstrom back in the Twin Cities so he could be fresh for Saturday's visit from the Los Angeles Kings. Darcy Kuemper served as Hackett's backup. Jamie Benn, who won a faceoff in the right circle with Minnesota's Matt Cullen, was credited with the primary assist. After winning the draw, the puck fluttered over to the high slot and Whitney wasted little time in scoring his sixth goal of the season. Dallas made it 2-0 at 7:31 when Vincour netted his second of the season by knocking a deflection into an open net. Defenseman Aaron Rome took the initial shot from the left point but his blast was tipped by Dallas rookie Reilly Smith. That deflection landed at the skates of Vincour, who tapped the puck into the wide-open net. The Wild got one back when Devin Setoguchi scored his 12th of the season 1:12 before the first intermission. Cullen picked off a lazy pass by Stars defenseman Alex Goligoski deep in the Dallas zone, skated behind the Stars' net and flipped a backhand pass to Setoguchi, who fired a short wrister that sailed over Lehtonen's right shoulder. After one period, the Stars led 2-1 and had outshot the Wild 17-7. Things were pretty quiet in the second period until Minnesota went on the power play for the first time at 14:44 when Dallas' Brenden Dillon earned a roughing call for pushing Cullen. Minnesota needed just 32 seconds to capitalize, as Jared Spurgeon tapped in a rebound for his fifth of the season at 15:16 to tie the game. Lehtonen stopped an initial shot by Kyle Brodziak with his pad, but Spurgeon corralled the rebound and flicked a wrist shot off the far post and in. Hackett came up with several big saves late in the second period to preserve the tie. He denied Benn twice at close range within a two-second span, then stopped a long slapper by Stephane Robidas and capped the sequence by denying Eric Nystrom's short wrister at the far post. Dallas went ahead to stay 1:02 into the final period when Cole collected his own rebound and fired it past Hackett for his sixth goal of the season. The Stars regained a two-goal edge at 2:10 when Benn scored with Dallas on a 5-on-3 power play after Koivu took his second hooking penalty of the night and Ryan Suter was whistled for crosschecking. Eakin's short backhander beat Hackett with 7:20 left to provide some insurance. Lehtonen had to leave the ice at the start of the 5-on-3 power play due to an equipment issue with backup Richard Bachman filling in. However, Lehtonen returned to the Dallas net with 15:38 left and finished the game. The 2:32 he spent in the net earned Bachman the win because the eventual game-winner was scored during his appearance. Things got ugly with 6:37 left when Minnesota's Mike Rupp flipped Smith into the Wild bench, sending Dallas' Antoine Roussel zooming in to retaliate. Once everyone was separated, Smith had earned a minor for roughing, Roussel a 10-minute misconduct while Minnesota's Zenon Konopka earned a double minor for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct for his role in the fracas in front of the visiting bench. With 5:11 left, the Wild's Justin Falk and Nystrom, who spent the 2010-11 season in Minnesota, dropped the gloves in front of the visiting bench.

 

Columbus v Calgary 6-4 - The Calgary Flames ushered in the post-Jarome Iginla era. The Columbus Blue Jackets managed to knock out the remaining face of the Flames franchise. Columbus scored four times against Miikka Kiprusoff in the second period, chasing the veteran goaltender in a wild 6-4 victory at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday night in Calgary's first game without Iginla. Matt Calvert, who had one of Columbus' four goals in the middle period, admitted that facing an Iginla-less Flames team was a strange experience. The loss ended Calgary's eight-game winning streak on home ice and earned Columbus (14-14-7) a split in Alberta after losing to the Edmonton Oilers 6-4 the night before. After the unlikeliest of scorers, Brian McGrattan, tied the game 1-1 for the Flames (13-16-4), Columbus went to work in a defensively absent period that featured seven goals and three successful odd-man rushes for the Blue Jackets. The first came via R.J. Umberger, who left Vinny Prospal with a virtual tap-in after a crisp cross-ice pass to put the Blue Jackets up 2-1 at 8:44. On Columbus' second 2-on-1 in just over a minute, Calvert looked off the passing option before rifling a shot over the glove of Kiprusoff at 10:12. As quickly as Columbus built the lead, Calgary's Mikael Backlund cut it. Just 57 seconds after Calvert's goal, Backlund took a blocked Mark Giordano shot and slid the puck through goalie Steve Mason to bring the Flames to within 3-2 at 11:09. The Blue Jackets' third odd-man rush of the period yielded their third goal with 3:41 left. Prospal moved the puck to Mark Letestu, who fed Derick Brassard to give Columbus the 4-2 edge. Calgary's Dennis Wideman cut the lead again 1:29 later, but Columbus was not done. Ryan Johansen stripped the puck off the stick of Stajan at center ice, deked Kiprusoff and lifted the puck into the net for his second of the season with 1:05 to go. Joey MacDonald started the third period in place of Kiprusoff, who allowed four goals on eight shots in the period and five on 20 shots on the evening. After robbing Derek MacKenzie with a diving save eight minutes into the period, MacDonald followed it by denying Prospal on a breakaway attempt. The saves led to Curtis Glencross' 14th goal of the season; the Flames' leading scorer sniped a shot over Mason's glove to cut the lead to 5-4 with 5:40 remaining. The Blue Jackets didn't waste any time welcoming Kiprusoff and the Flames to life without Iginla, who was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, directing eight shots on the Calgary goaltender in the first eight minutes. A shorthanded effort on the ninth shot gave the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead. Retrieving the puck after a Columbus clear, Calgary defenseman TJ Brodie curled around the net after a speedy forecheck from MacKenzie. Under pressure, Brodie threw the puck into the slot to what he thought was a waiting teammate, but instead it found Letestu, who wasted little time deking a surprised Kiprusoff and sliding the puck into the net at 10:20 for the unassisted tally and the only goal of the first period.