Montreal Canadiens @ Nashville Predators 1-5
Shea Weber and Roman Josi continued their offensive output to help the Predators to a 5-1 win against the Canadiens at Bridgestone Arena. Weber gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 8:40 of the first period on a slap shot from the point. Josi left a drop pass that Weber was able to step into and shoot past Canadiens goaltender Dustin Tokarski for his 10th goal. Weber's 15 points in December lead the NHL. Josi gave the Predators a 2-0 lead at 8:42 of the second period on a slap shot from the point during a power play. Josi took the pass from Weber and took a shot that went through traffic and beat Tokarski for his ninth goal. Josi's five goals in December lead all defensemen. Pekka Rinne made 35 saves for Nashville, which won back-to-back games for the first time in over a month and is 11-4-3 at home. Alex Galchenyuk scored for Montreal, which has lost four in a row and eight of its past nine games. Tokarski made 11 saves before being pulled for Mike Condon, who made three saves. Ryan Ellis gave the Predators a 3-0 lead at 3:08 of the third period. Ellis attempted a pass to the slot to Craig Smith, but it deflected off of a defenseman and past Tokarski for his third goal. The Canadiens pulled Tokarski following the goal. Calle Jarnkrok gave the Predators a 4-0 lead at 8:58 of the third period on a wrist shot from the slot. Jarnkrok took a pass from Colin Wilson and shot it past Condon for his sixth goal. Montreal had an apparent goal by Daniel Carr at 9:56 of the third period, but it was disallowed after video review because of goaltender interference. Galchenyuk scored to make it 4-1 at 12:08 of the third period on the power play. Galchenyuk took a pass from Max Pacioretty and one-timed a shot past Rinne for his eighth goal. Wilson scored an empty-net goal to give the Predators a 5-1 at 17:55 of the third period.
Shea Weber: "The game is weird like that. Sometimes you think you deserve better and you go on a little bit of a skid or a little drought for a little bit, or whatever you want to call it, and sometimes you maybe shouldn't be getting the ones that you do. It all evens out in the end. The biggest thing is wins. We're focused on getting the team wins, and these two before the (Christmas) break are big."
Roman Josi: "It's been going well lately. I'm still young, so I'm trying to work on my game every day. Obviously playing with [Weber] these four years, for a young guy there's not much better than playing with one of the best defensemen in the world. It's been a great experience so far playing here in Nashville, and obviously playing with [Weber]. That's one thing we're looking for … more consistency. I think we did a good job the last two games. Obviously we didn't start that well. I thought [the Canadiens] were the better team for two periods. [Rinne] kind of stood on his head and kept us in the game. Yeah we had a good third period, but that's one thing we addressed a lot, more consistency. We're happy to get two wins in a row now."
Peter Laviolette: "Our guys were opportunistic. We got one on the power play, got some goals by our defensemen. When we had the opportunities, we made the most of them. We didn't have that many, but when we did get the looks we were able to get it behind them."
Colin Wilson: "I think just at any time putting two wins together, I think it'll make the break a little bit nicer. Four days, I think everybody would be thinking about it after a loss. It felt good, and we'll try to use that momentum after the break."
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Colorado Avalanche 7-4
Tyler Bozak, who played at the University of Denver, enjoyed a happy homecoming by scoring three third-period goals, and Jake Gardiner had four assists to help the Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Colorado Avalanche 7-4 at Pepsi Center. Toronto ended Colorado's winning streak at five games and is on a 4-0-2 roll. The Maple Leafs are 10-5-5 in 20 games after starting the season with two wins in 12 games under new coach Mike Babcock. The Maple Leafs, who went 2-for-20 on the power play in the previous seven games, scored on all three man-advantage opportunities, making them 7-for-8 against the Avalanche in two games this season. Goalie Jonathan Bernier had 24 saves for his second consecutive win after going 0-8-3 in his first 11 decisions. The Avalanche fell five points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference. The Maple Leafs went ahead 4-3 at 0:49 of the third period on Bozak's first goal. James van Riemsdyk passed to him skating into the Avalanche zone for a shot that hit goalie Semyon Varlamov's right pad and dribbled between his legs across the goal line. Bozak scored again at 6:47 with a backhand on a breakaway after a giveaway by Blake Comeau, and van Riemsdyk deflected in Gardiner's point shot at 10:40. Bozak completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal with 3:40 remaining in the game. Colorado's Jack Skille answered with his second goal of the game with 2:29 to go. Erik Johnson tied the game 3-3 for the Avalanche at 18:43 of the second period on a power play with Matt Hunwick off for slashing Nathan MacKinnon. After Colorado went without a shot on each of its first two power plays, Landeskog slid the puck across to Johnson in the left circle for a one-timer behind Bernier. The Maple Leafs grabbed a 3-2 lead at 12:03 of the second period on Leo Komarov's second goal of the game. Peter Holland took a shot from the right point, and Komarov deflected it past Varlamov for his 15th goal. Varlamov, who was named the NHL's First Star for the week ending Dec. 20, hadn't allowed more than two goals in any of his previous eight games. He made 15 saves Monday. Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said Varlamov looked worn out but that backup Reto Berra wasn't available because he injured his ankle playing soccer before the game and will have an MRI on Tuesday. Colorado also lost defenseman Nate Guenin to what Roy said is a probable concussion in the second period. The Avalanche tied the game 2-2 at 1:07 of the second period on a goal by John Mitchell shortly after Bernier robbed Landeskog in front. Toronto took a 2-1 lead in the first period on power-play goals from Komarov and Joffrey Lupul 4:08 apart. Colorado opened the scoring on Skille's first goal at 2:27. Skille was alone in front and had time to tee up the puck before shooting. The Maple Leafs tied the score 1-1 at 13:34 with Colorado's Francois Beauchemin serving a tripping penalty. Komarov used Holland as a screen and beat Varlamov from low in the right circle. They went ahead at 17:42 after Comeau went to the box for hooking. Gardiner set up Lupul in the slot for his first goal in four games since returning from a lower-body injury that kept him out of the lineup for five games.
Gabriel Landeskog: "We've grown over the last couple of weeks, and that's something we're going to bring with us into the Christmas break. This one, we'll definitely have to think about it and watch video and see what we can do better. We know we're a strong group in here; we're going to keep our heads high and get some rest."
Patrick Roy: "I saw that Varly was tired. He had a great run, he played hard for us. I thought I might as well stay with Varly. It's too bad because Varly played so well and the team had such a good run. After the first 10 minutes, it seemed like our focus was gone and we just had a hard time to get back in that game. It just wasn't there for us."
Winnipeg Jets @ Edmonton Oilers 1-3
Cam Talbot gave the Edmonton Oilers an early Christmas gift when he made 44 saves in a 3-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at Rexall Place. Right wing Teddy Purcell had two goals and an assist, but it was Talbot who stole the show. Winnipeg outshot Edmonton 45-21. Justin Schultz scored his first goal of the season and Taylor Hall had three assists for the Oilers, who ended a three-game losing streak. Edmonton has won seven straight at home. It was Talbot's first win at Rexall Place since Oct. 29 against the Montreal Canadiens. Bryan Little scored and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck allowed three goals on 14 shots for the Jets before being pulled in the second period in favor of Michael Hutchinson.
Talbot made an outstanding save on Tyler Myers early in the first period to keep the game scoreless and set the tone. He made 12 saves in the first and 16 in the second and third periods for his fifth win of the season. Purcell scored 11:15 into the first period to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead when he took a centering pass from Hall and lifted a shot over Hellebuyck. Purcell scored again at 12:59 on a one-timer off a cross-ice pass from Leon Draisaitl. Purcell fed Schultz coming in off the blue line in front of the net and the latter put a shot past Hellebuyck at 7:44 of the second period to give the Oilers a 3-0 lead. Hellebuyck, who made his fifth consecutive start for Winnipeg, was pulled following the goal. Little cut the lead to 3-1 at 12:27, one second after a hooking penalty to Hall expired. Blake Wheeler took a shot that hit the crossbar, then bounced off the glass behind the net and back out in front to Little, who batted the puck past Talbot.
The goal was reviewed for a possible high stick, but stood. The Jets continued to be frustrated by Talbot in the third period. Center Mark Scheifele had an excellent chance in front, but Talbot was able to slide across to make the save.
Michael Hutchinson: "Talbot played an amazing game, he definitely stole those two points for them. We picked up right where we left off after playing the [New York] Rangers (5-2 win on Friday). We had a ton of scoring chances and probably could have found the back of the net a couple more times. We didn't lose a step from that game to this one. It was nice to see us getting that many chances on net. You don't see too many games where you throw 45 shots on net and don't come away with the two points. If we keep playing like this, we are going to have success down the stretch."
Tyler Myers: "I thought for sure that we outplayed them tonight and I thought we deserved the two points. At the same time, their goalie played well and we have to bear down and finish our chances. We had a lot of chances and they just weren't going in for us. All in all, we did a lot of good things tonight."
Paul Maurice: "We were in that hockey game. We needed to make good on some of the chances that we had and we didn't. Their guy made some good saves. We missed the net on a few too. They had 20 blocks, so give them credit for getting in front of them. But we were playing in the right end of the rink."
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