Columbus @ Boston 2-3 OT - with a couple of Bruins fans cheering every time they scored and they were treated to an entertaining game. Milan Lucic tracked down a shot he blocked and scored on a breakaway with 48.6 seconds left in overtime, and the Bruins ran their point total on their season-long five-game homestand to nine out of 10 with a 3-2 victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets at TD Garden on Thursday. Lucic beat Sergei Bobrovsky (28 saves) to the five-hole after chasing down the puck all the way to the high slot of the Blue Jackets zone. Lucic blocked Cam Atkinson's slap shot from near the Boston blue line with Columbus (6-10-2) hoping it could get to the shootout. The Blue Jackets took the lead when they scored seconds after their second fruitless power play of the first period expired. Columbus forward Mark Letestu won a race with Boston defenseman Dougie Hamilton for a dump-in, and Hamilton's D partner Zdeno Chara made the mistake of also going below the goal line after the puck. That left the front of the net open for Blake Comeau to one-time the puck past Johnson off a feed from Letestu for a 1-0 lead at 12:47. Boston tied the game at 18:10 with a fortuitous bounce. Chara's wrist shot toward the net deflected off the side of Loui Eriksson's skate in the slot and eluded Bobrovsky. Eriksson was credited with the goal and the teams went to the dressing room tied 1-1. The Bruins received a scare around the midway point of the period when David Krejci left the game with an apparent injury. Krejci lost an edge while pursuing a puck in the corner and was hit into the boards by Brandon Dubinsky. Krejci didn't return for the rest of the period but was back to start the second. Shawn Thornton put the Bruins in front 2-1 at 10:09 of the second. After a giveaway in the neutral zone, Gregory Campbell gained the Columbus zone and dished to Thornton, whose slap shot went off Columbus defenseman Jack Johnson's skate and past Bobrovsky. Nick Foligno tied the game a second time. He followed his shot to the Boston net and backhanded a rebound over Johnson at 16:34. Neither team could break the tie in the third period, when the Blue Jackets outshot the Bruins, 12-7. Richards was able to take the positives out of those 20 minutes by his team, which earned two points on a two-game road trip.
It was hard to keep track of every game going on especially with me focusing solely on the Coyotes and Stars games. But this encounter was screened in the corner of the bar and as evidenced by the cheers, there were some Kings fans in the bar.
Los Angeles Kings @ NY Islanders 3-2 - Slava Voynov, Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli scored in the final period to rally the Kings to a 3-2 victory Thursday at Nassau Coliseum. Toffoli deflected Jake Muzzin's wrister from the left point past Kevin Poulin with 1:33 remaining. The Kings controlled the tempo early and outshot the Islanders 10-7 in the first period, but most of the shots by both teams were from the perimeter. L.A. won 15 of 22 faceoffs, but the Kings hurt themselves by giving away the puck 10 times, twice as many as the Islanders. The Islanders came out with more energy in the second period, dominated play and put two pucks past Scrivens. New York scored at 2:44 on a rare goal by its fourth line. Cizikas won a battle in the left corner and forced the puck through a tangle of bodies toward the slot. Scrivens stopped the slow-moving puck with his toe, but Cizikas crashed the net, found the rebound, and shoveled a high backhander into the net for his first of the season. Ness, one of New York's three second-round picks in the 2008 NHL Draft, scored his first NHL goal at 4:58 off a great pass by Tavares. He controlled the puck in the right circle and fired a hard pass across the slot to an onrushing Ness, who one-timed it past Scrivens' glove. The Kings finally solved Poulin when Anze Kopitar controlled the puck behind the net and found Voynov in the lower right circle. Voynov's sharp-angled shot caught Poulin moving and got between the goaltender's pads for his third goal of the season. Los Angeles continued to push and tied the game with a power-play goal. With Cal Clutterbuck off for an illegal check to the head of Trevor Lewis, Pearson's wrister from the right circle got between Poulin's pads and slithered barely over the goal line, a ruling confirmed by video review.
I was able to watch to watch the first two periods of the Ducks v Lightning game before switching over to the stars game, and with a depleted roster the Ducks got annihilated. For one avid ducks fan this will be hard to take, as he hates the Lightning!!
Anaheim @ Tampa Bay 1-5 - Martin St. Louis and Valtteri Filppula each had three points, and Ben Bishop made 24 saves for his NHL-leading 13th win. Filppula finished with two goals and an assist, his second two-goal game of the season, and St. Louis had a goal and two assists. Tampa Bay's final goal Thursday came early in the third period when Victor Hedman stepped into the play and powered a pass by Richard Panik into the corner of the Anaheim net, just below the crossbar. The Lightning built their lead to 4-0 with two second-period goals before Anaheim got on the scoreboard. Filppula scored his second goal of the game on a power play 3:16 into the second. Tampa Bay forward Alex Killorn charged the Anaheim net and lifted a rebound over Jonas Hiller at 10:51 for the four-goal lead. St. Louis had an assist on each of the second-period goals. Anaheim's Emerson Etem found some open ice in front of the Tampa Bay net and scored his fifth goal of the season at 16:07. The Lightning opened the scoring at 11:52 of the first period with a quick wrist shot from Filppula that was the result of some crisp passing by Teddy Purcell and Matthew Carle. Tampa Bay opened a 2-0 lead on a power-play goal by St. Louis at 16:25. He tapped a rebound into the Anaheim net after Hiller stopped Filppula's shot. It broke a seven-game power-play drought for the Lightning, during which they went 0-for-19. The Ducks did not get their first shot on goal until more than 13 minutes of the first period elapsed. With Tampa Bay's Tyler Johnson in the penalty box for tripping, Anaheim was able to put six shots on net. From that point forward, the Ducks outshot Tampa Bay 25-14.
The only game not screened was
Colorado @ St Louis 3-7 - The Colorado Avalanche may be trying to prove themselves to the upper-echelon of the NHL, but it was the St. Louis Blues who made a bold statement Thursday. The Blues knocked the Avalanche down a notch in convincing fashion, getting contributions from a large number of players, and with a 7-3 victory sent a message to their new Central Division rivals that maybe they're not quite on their level yet. T.J. Oshie assisted on four goals (his first career four-point game), David Backes and Derek Roy each had a goal and two assists, Alexander Steen scored his League-leading 15th and 16th goals of the season, and Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Pietrangelo each had two points for the Blues (12-2-3), who are 4-0-1 in their past five games and 7-1-1 in their past nine. The Blues did it with special teams, going 3-for-4 with the man advantage, and with their top unit of Oshie, Backes and Steen collecting nine points. Jaroslav Halak stopped 21 shots, helping St. Louis defeat Colorado for the fifth straight time at Scottrade Center. Nathan MacKinnon, Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly scored for the Avalanche (14-4-0). Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Semyon Varlamov combined for 22 saves. Varlamov replaced Giguere for the second period, but Giguere returned at the start of the third after Varlamov allowed two goals on six shots. The teams traded goals in the first period, with Derek Roy putting the Blues ahead on a power play, the Avalanche came into the game a perfect 20-for-20 on road penalty kills, before MacKinnon tied it with a power-play goal of his own. It was the ninth straight game the Blues scored first and 14th time in 17 games. The Colorado goal extended Paul Stastny's point streak to five games (three goals, two assists) and it was the 27th point of his career against the Blues (17th assist) in 22 games. The Blues took over in the second period, outscoring the Avalanche 4-0. The game then took a crazy turn with three fights in the final 3:14 of the period. Backes gave the Blues the lead for good with his first goal in 10 games when he slammed a shot top-shelf past Giguere 2:49 into the second. Steen's first of the game put the Blues up 3-1 when their top line outworked the Avalanche in their end; Backes fed a backhand to Steen, whose slap shot beat Giguere high top-shelf. Giguere, who was 5-0-0 on the season and had allowed five goals on 165 shots, was pulled, and after returning wound up allowing five goals on 23 shots. The goal extended Steen's NHL-leading point streak to 12 games (11 goals and four assists). The most recent Blues player to have such a streak was Keith Tkachuk during the 2002-03 season. Tarasenko scored his sixth of the season when he raced to a puck in the Colorado zone and greeted Varlamov with a slap shot top-shelf at 12:09 for a 4-1 lead. A former Avalanche connection would strike against their former team when Chris Stewart scored the Blues' third power-play goal on four tries. He collected Kevin Shattenkirk's shot from the high slot and lifted a backhand over Varlamov on the doorstep at 14:39 to make it 5-1. It was Shattenkirk's 10th point in the past 10 games. Shattenkirk and Stewart were acquired by the Blues from the Avalanche as part of a trade that sent Erik Johnson to Colorado in 2011. Steen's second of the game and 16th of the season came after Backes lifted a puck toward Giguere, and in an attempt to catch it, it dropped at his skates and Steen charged in and poked it in 2:11 into the third period. Duchene would speed between a pair of Blues defensemen and lift a puck past Halak 4:36 into the third to make it 6-2. Jay Bouwmeester's first of the season came from the high slot, beating Giguere top-shelf at 8:36, before O'Reilly would knock in a loose puck to the left of Halak with 8:54 remaining in the Blues' convincing victory.
This was the final game shown, and it enabled me to make friends with some passionate Sharks fans Including Ashleigh from Oakland. I even found myself punching the air after the OT winner.
San Jose @ Vancouver 2-1 OT - Dan Boyle wasn't going to miss an open look twice. After Boyle helped tie the game late in regulation by missing an open shot, the veteran defenseman made no mistake when he got another chance in overtime. Rookie Tomas Hertl converted Boyle's whiff to tie the game with 1:05 left in the third period, and Boyle won it by scoring a power-play goal with 2:22 remaining in overtime as the Sharks came back to beat the Vancouver Canucks 2-1 on Thursday night. With Canucks captain Henrik Sedin off for hooking and his twin brother Daniel sulking without his sibling alongside him, the Sharks' power play worked the puck around crisply to Boyle at the top of the left circle for a perfect shot over a sprawling Roberto Luongo. The tying goal started with goalie Antti Niemi on the bench for an extra skater and Sharks captain Joe Thornton lying on the ice behind the Vancouver net. Thornton managed to sweep a loose puck to an open Boyle between the circles, but he whiffed on his shot only to have the puck squirt to Hertl at the side of the net. He lifted his 11th goal - tops among NHL rookies - over Luongo, who was stranded by the miss. Niemi finished with 34 saves and was busiest while being outshot 20-9 in the second period as the Sharks won their second straight following a five-game losing streak. They are 2-1-4 in their past seven games, six of which have gone past regulation. Vancouver defenseman Kevin Bieksa opened the scoring on a power play one-timer with 6:20 left in the second period and Luongo made 28 saves for the Canucks, who have lost three straight (0-2-1). he would end the game having has his ass-kicked by Andrew Desjardins. Bieksa's goal also snapped a 2-for-28 funk for Vancouver's 28th-ranked power play in the previous seven games. It was just the Canucks' third man-advantage goal on home ice this season. For a while it looked like the Canucks' penalty-killers would make that stand up. Luongo got a break when Thornton rang a shot off the crossbar on a first-period power play, but Vancouver killed off all three chances against the Sharks' eighth-ranked power play, and had killed off 26 straight before Boyle converted in overtime. Tortorella's only lament was a number of missed opportunities to put the game away, including Henrik Sedin shooting the puck through the crease with an empty net midway through the third period. This was the last of four games between the Pacific Division rivals this season. San Jose won the first two, extending its winning streak against the Canucks to nine games, including a sweep in the first round of last spring's Stanley Cup Playoffs. But the Canucks snapped that slump with a 4-2 win at San Jose a week earlier and appeared on their way to splitting the season series until the final minutes. Brad Richardson and Joe Pavelski also exchanged punches during the third period.
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