Philadelphia @ NY Islanders 3-4 SO - Trailing in the third period of a crucial game against a Metropolitan Division opponent, Kyle Okposo showed why he is emerging as one of the New York Islanders' most prominent leaders both on and off the ice. Okposo tied the game with 2:58 remaining in regulation and then scored in the fourth round of the shootout to give the New York Islanders a 4-3 win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday at Nassau Coliseum. Matt Read and Claude Giroux beat Nilsson in the tiebreaker before the Swedish goaltender stopped Sean Couturier to clinch the win. Trailing 3-1 after 40 minutes, New York used a dominant third period in which it outshot the Flyers 17-3 and scored twice to send the game to overtime. Brock Nelson cut Philadelphia's lead to 3-2 when he took Josh Bailey's cross-crease pass in front of the net to beat Emery for his eighth goal at 8:16, six seconds after Adam Hall finished serving a hooking penalty. Okposo tied the game on the power play, 68 seconds after Steve Downie was called for holding. Nielsen found Okposo at the side of the Philadelphia net, where the puck bounced off his skate and in for his 20th goal. Officials reviewed the goal to see if the Islanders right wing intentionally kicked the puck into the net, but the goal was upheld, completing New York's comeback and forcing overtime. The rally came after an aggressive run by the Flyers in the latter half of the second period that allowed them to take a commanding 3-1 lead into the second intermission. With the game tied 1-1 in the second, Simmonds went to work in front of the net to give Philadelphia the lead. Scott Hartnell's initial shot was stopped by a sprawling Nilsson, but Simmonds found a loose puck in the crease and slid it just below the Islanders goalie for his 17th goal at 11:30. The goal extended Simmonds' point streak to four games, during which he has seven points. Vincent Lecavalier was whistled for holding 54 seconds after Simmonds' goal, but the Islanders could not answer. Emery was able to stick out his left pad to make two quick stops on Tavares from in close with 5:50 left in the second. That was just one of numerous sequences in which Emery held the Islanders at bay. Read got his second of the game with 1:44 remaining in the middle period. Speeding down the left wing, Read switched to his forehand before lifting a quick shot over Nilsson's right shoulder for his 13th goal, six of which have come against the Islanders. Read opened the scoring while the Flyers were shorthanded early in the second. With Nicklas Grossmann off for hooking, he sprinted down the left side before speeding toward the Islanders net and lifting a backhand to the top right corner over Nilsson's shoulder. Tavares tied the game at 1-1 when he found a loose puck on the doorstep with 10:34 left in the second. With Hartnell off for tripping, Tavares fed Thomas Vanek in the slot. Vanek couldn't get off a shot, but the puck slid toward the Flyers crease, where the Islanders captain pounced to beat Emery in close for his 23rd of the season. The Flyers responded to Tavares' equalizer with two unanswered goals. But New York stuck to their aggressive game plan in the third and found a way to get two big points and their ninth win in 12 games (9-3-0). The game got off to a fiery start when Matt Carkner and Jay Rosehill were issued fighting majors, with just 5:54 gone in the game. Matt Martin was also called for roughing against Adam Hall. At 12:03 Kyle Okposo and Braydon Coburn followed suit with a fight of their own. 3:15 into the third saw Eric Boulton and Steve Downie also given roughing calls.
Los Angeles @ Boston 2-3 - It's safe to say that Brad Marchand's offensive struggles are over. The Boston Bruins left wing scored five goals in the first 34 games this season. In the past four games, he's exceeded that total by one. Marchand continued his recent torrid pace by scoring two goals, and goalie Chad Johnson made 21 saves for the Bruins in a 3-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings at TD Garden on Monday. Boston earned three points out of a possible four in back-to-back games against the past two Stanley Cup champions. The Chicago Blackhawks won 3-2 in a shootout against the Bruins at United Center on Sunday. Marchand's second goal came 18 seconds after the Kings tied the game in the third period. He now has a four-game goal streak, with six goals in that span. His linemates Patrice Bergeron and Reilly Smith are on four-game point streaks. Jeff Carter tied the game at 2-2 at 8:35 of the third period when he one-timed a shot from the left circle off a feed by Drew Doughty. But Marchand's hot hand wasted little time putting the Bruins back ahead. Bergeron circled the net and fed the puck to Smith in the left circle. Smith dished it across to the right circle for a Marchand one-timer and a 3-2 lead at 8:53. The Bruins' special teams owned the first period, starting with their penalty kill. Marchand scored his League-leading fourth shorthanded goal at 12:07. It took a monstrous effort for Marchand to score. He first had to beat Doughty one-on-one by passing the puck around Doughty and landing a backhand shot on Quick. The Kings goaltender made the save, but Carter's backhand clearing pass went right back to Marchand in the right circle. Marchand made a move on Kopitar and beat Quick with a wrist shot inside the far post. Boston's power play closed out the first-period scoring on a shot by Torey Krug, who slapped the puck from the top of the left circle next to the half wall past Quick high to the glove side with Zdeno Chara screening unscathed at the top of the blue paint at 17:51. Willie Mitchell pulled the Kings within a goal in the second period with his first goal in 50 games. The veteran defenseman drove down the middle of the Boston zone and one-timed Mike Richards' pass past Johnson at 4:09. The Bruins maintained their 2-1 lead when 40 minutes were through, and they held an 18-12 shots edge as well.
St Louis @ Detroit 4-1 - The Blues felt it was time to get back to what they do best. Using a dominant forecheck and patrolling the front of the opposing net like they owned it, the Blues snapped a two-game losing streak Monday night by beating the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 at Joe Louis Arena. St. Louis got three of its goals from defensemen and the other from a fourth line that gave the Red Wings fits on the forecheck. It went exactly the way the Blues had planned it. They also did that for the first 10 minutes of the third, getting a fortunate bounce on a goal by Jay Bouwmeester for the three-goal margin before the injury-plagued Red Wings finally pushed back a little. By that point, it was far too little and way too late. Defensemen Barret Jackman and Kevin Shattenkirk also scored for the Blues, who got their first goal from fourth-line forward Magnus Paajarvi at 11:13 of the first period to open the scoring. Alexander Steen finished with two assists for the Blues, who had 10 players record at least a point, and goaltender Jaroslav Halak improved to 20-7-3 by stopping 22 of 23 shots. Detroit has been devastated by injuries to lineup regulars, including Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen, and they received more bad news on that front Monday night. Goalie Jimmy Howard exited at 10:44 of the middle period with another injury to the same knee that sidelined him for eight games in December. Backup goalie Jonas Gustavsson is still on injured reserve with a groin injury, which means rookie Petr Mrazek, who relieved Howard, is the top option going forward. The Blues, who won in Detroit for the third straight time, didn't look past the banged-up Red Wings. They took it to their former Central Division rivals most of the game, outshooting them by a 39-23 margin and outworking them to kill off five of Detroit's six power plays, including a 5-on-3 in the second. Paajarvi gave the Blues a 1-0 lead just past the midway point in the first, 2:45 after a great glove save by Halak nixed Todd Bertuzzi's one-timer from close range. Howard's aggression left him slightly out of position, and Paajarvi made him pay with his fourth goal of the season. The Blues left wing collected the puck behind the net and banked a backhand wraparound attempt into the net off the right leg pad of Howard, who had just slid back into the crease. Detroit, which got outshot in the first period 18-7, rallied late in the period to tie it 1-1 on a power-play goal by Gustav Nyquist. His sixth goal came off a rebound of a shot by Henrik Zetterberg and knotted the game with 27 seconds left in the opening period. The Red Wings went right back on the power play 13 seconds later, when David Backes was called for holding, but couldn't grab the lead with the man advantage, which carried over into the second period. The Blues seized control by taking a 3-1 lead on quick goals from Jackman and Shattenkirk early in the second. Each beat Howard to the left side of the net off a long shot through traffic. Steen, who assisted on both goals, screened Howard on Jackman's slap shot from the high slot at 1:01 to make it 2-1, and Backes stood in front of Howard, blocking the goalie's sight line, as Shattenkirk ripped a shot into the net with the man advantage for the two-goal cushion at 2:21. Howard left about eight minutes after Shattenkirk's goal. Mrazek, who's up from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League, finished the game and made 13 saves. The lone goal Mrazek allowed was Bouwmeester's at 2:14 of the third, and it reflected the kind of night it was for Detroit. Bouwmeester flipped a fluttering point shot that went wide to the far side, but the puck bounced off the leg of Red Wings center Riley Sheahan and into the net.
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