San Jose @ Toronto 4-2 - Brad Stuart scored the tiebreaking goal 16 minutes into the second period and the Sharks beat the Maple Leafs 4-2 on Tuesday night at Air Canada Centre. Stuart's shot from half-boards went off of a Maple Leafs defenseman in front of the net and past goalie James Reimer to put the Sharks ahead to stay. Forward Joe Pavelski pressured in front of the net forcing the defensemen in on Reimer. Stuart's third goal of the season came against the Maple Leafs' weary fourth line, which was trapped in its own zone and was gassed after being on the ice for a shift that lasted 1:48. Logan Couture hit the empty net with 1:24 remaining, assuring the Maple Leafs of their fifth consecutive loss. Both teams' fourth lines played a key role in the outcome. The Sharks struck first at 10:00 of the first period when defenseman Jason Demers took a shot from the blue line that was tipped in by fourth-liner Mike Brown, a former Maple Leaf, for his second goal of the season. Joe Thornton scored his fifth of the season at 14:31 during a 5-on-3 power play to make it 2-0 after the Maple Leafs got into a hole because of penalties to Jay McClement and Mason Raymond. The goal was the Sharks' first in four opportunities this season with a 5-on-3 advantage. But after being outplayed badly in the first period, Toronto capitalized on a pair of power plays to pull even before the midway mark of the second. Raymond made it 2-1 at 2:34 when he stole the puck from Stuart, broke in on a 2-on-1 and beat goalie Antti Niemi (28 saves) through the five-hole for his 10th goal of the season. Phil Kessel tied the game at 9:47 with his 15th goal of the season and the 200th of his career. He converted a quick pass by Tyler Bozak after an initial shot from the side of the net by James van Riemsdyk.
Carolina @ Washington 4-1 - Mike Green scored his first goal of the season for the Capitals. Braden Holtby lasted two periods, making 19 saves on 23 shots. Skinner gave Carolina a 1-0 lead just past the midway point of the first period. After receiving a pass from Eric Staal from below the goal line, Skinner corralled the puck on his backhand before quickly shifting to his forehand and squeaking a tight-angle shot past Holtby, who was hugging the short-side post, at 10:20. The Hurricanes swiftly took control of the game in the second period, scoring three goals in 3:44 starting with Skinner's second. Defenseman Jay Harrison fired a stretch slap pass from below his goal line that Skinner caught in stride before beating Holtby with a short-side wrister at 11:18. Carolina defenseman Andrej Sekera, returning from a two-game absence due to an upper-body injury, extended the lead to 3-0 at 14:09 on the power play with a shot from the point, and Jiri Tlusty's backhand goal 53 seconds later capped the scoring outburst. It was enough for Capitals coach Adam Oates to turn to Philipp Grubauer in place of Holtby to start the third period. Green spoiled Peters' shutout bid on the power play at 6:39 of the third period, snapping the longest season-opening drought of his career at 24 games. Peters was playing for the first time since Nov. 21, with Cam Ward back from a lower-body injury.
Tampa Bay @ Columbus 0-1 - On a night when all the Columbus Blue Jackets should have been talking about was a brilliant goal by Nick Foligno, an injury to goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was foremost on their minds following a 1-0 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Bobrovsky had just made his 18th stop to bring the Nationwide Arena crowd to its feet, a glove save of a J.T. Brown breakaway while doing the splits, when he stayed down for about a minute before being helped off the ice 4:13 into the third period. Curtis McElhinney finished the game and was under siege until the final horn when a shot from near the left post by Valtteri Filppula got past him and hugged the goal line as it went across the crease. McElhinney kept the shutout alive with 6:30 to play when he cut the angle and got his right pad on a shot from the low right circle by Lightning forward Nate Thompson. Columbus then killed a tripping penalty on Jack Johnson with 4:46 left, allowing one low-risk shot. McElhinney had to come up big with 1:26 left in the third after a turnover enabled Victor Hedman to shove a pass to St. Louis for an unimpeded backhander from the right side. The Columbus goalie made a glove save while falling to the ice. Foligno injected some energy in the game with his highlight-reel goal at 4:30 of the second period. The sequence started when Ryan Johansen stole the puck and fed an open Foligno in front of the net. As he skated left to right across the goal mouth, Foligno stuck the stick between his legs and flicked a shot past Ben Bishop for his seventh goal. The goal energized the Blue Jackets, who posted a 13-6 shot advantage in the second period, when they nearly doubled their lead. With less than three minutes left, Johansen and Foligno were at it again as Johansen, after receiving a pass from linemate RJ Umberger, sent a centering pass out of the right corner. Foligno was anchored at the crease for the tip attempt, but Bishop made the save only to leave the rebound sitting just off the goal line.
Ottawa @ Florida 4-2 - Corvo picked up a goal and an assist on seemingly harmless wrist shots from the point to help lead the Senators to a 4-2 victory against the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center. Colin Greening broke a 2-2 tie with 42.6 seconds left in the second period when Corvo's wrist shot on the power play bounced off his left knee in front of the net, went high in the air and past goalie Tim Thomas. Erik Condra and Bobby Ryan had the other Ottawa goals, and Clarke MacArthur picked up two assists for the Senators, who rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to win for only the third time in their past nine games (3-6-0). Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson, who had allowed four goals in each of his past four starts, finished with 30 saves. He improved his career record against his former team to 10-1-1. Anderson was a backup for the Panthers from 2006-07 through 2008-09. Jonathan Huberdeau and Brian Campbell scored power-play goals for the Panthers, who have lost five of six and three in a row. Campbell also had an assist. In their first year as Atlantic Division foes, Ottawa has won the first two games against Florida. The Senators won 3-2 on Nov. 9 in Peter Horachek's first game as Panthers coach after he took over for Kevin Dineen. Ottawa has won 13 of the past 15 meetings between the teams. Ryan scored the only goal of the third period when he redirected Jared Cowen's centering pass after a turnover at the Florida blue line. The Panthers, who came in with the NHL's 29th-ranked power play, took advantage of a 5-on-3 opportunity to take a 2-0 lead in the first period. Huberdeau opened the scoring at 6:44 of the first when he blasted a rebound of Tomas Fleischmann's one-timer through Anderson's legs. The assist was the first point in 10 games for Fleischmann, Florida's leading scorer in each of the past two seasons. Campbell scored at 8:22 with one second left in the second Ottawa penalty, a goaltender interference call on Jason Spezza. Campbell took a diagonal pass from Upshall at the top of the left circle, skated in and beat Anderson with a pinpoint wrist shot high to the glove side. Those were the fastest two goals for the Panthers this season and only the third time they scored twice in the first period. The Senators tied the game before the end of the period, during which they outshot Florida 21-10. After Anderson made stellar pad saves against Upshall and Nick Bjugstad, Ottawa outshot Florida 12-0 over the final 7:40. Corvo cut the Florida lead in half when his wrist shot from the point found its way past three or four players and beat Thomas high to the stick side. Condra tied the game with 1:15 left in the period after getting knocked to the ice by defenseman Tom Gilbert, getting up and one-timing a pass from Spezza from behind the net past Thomas.
Vancouver @ Nashville 3-1 - Ryan Kesler broke a 1-1 tie after the Canucks (15-10-5) pressured the Predators in their own zone and Jason Garrison was able to step into a slap shot from the left point that was stopped by goaltender Marek Mazanec. The rebound caromed into a tangle of bodies in front of the net, and Kesler found the loose puck and banked a shot off Nashville defenseman Ryan Ellis and into the net at 7:37. Kesler added a power-play goal with 5:45 remaining, backhanding a loose puck into the net after Garrison's right-point shot was partially blocked but slid toward the front of the net. Kesler leads the Canucks with 14 goals and has back-to-back two-goal games. He scored twice Sunday in a 3-2 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes. Eleven of his goals have come in the Canucks' 17 road games. Vancouver's Brad Richardson and Nashville's Colin Wilson scored 30 seconds apart in the second period. Neither team generated much offense in a scoreless, penalty-free first period that saw the best scoring chances crammed into the final few minutes. Nashville's Nick Spaling stole the puck in the left corner and fed a wide-open Craig Smith in front, but Luongo stopped him from close in with 2:19 left, then managed to keep the rebound out of the net despite Smith batting away at the loose puck. On the next shift, Kesler swatted a loose puck out of midair and off the crossbar. With 50 seconds left, Canucks defenseman Dan Hamhuis whipped a backhander from the slot that beat Mazanec but rang off the right post. Richardson gave the Canucks the lead at 15:24. He was standing to the left of Mazanec when he picked up a rebound and banked it into the net off the goaltender for his sixth goal of the season. Vancouver could not enjoy the lead for very long. Luongo stopped Roman Josi's slapper from just inside the blue line, but the puck came to Patric Hornqvist in the slot. Instead of shooting, Hornqvist drew Luongo and the defense to him, then slid the puck to his right, where Wilson was all alone and easily dunked his fifth of the season into the half-empty net. Tortorella said defenseman Alexander Edler is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Edler played 7:28 before leaving the game.
Los Angeles @ Anaheim 3-2 SO - Dwight King scored the only goal in the shootout when he snapped a shot past Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller's glove in the ninth round before Jones stopped Mathieu Perreault to seal his first NHL win and send mixed cheers throughout the standing-room-only crowd of 17,294 at Honda Center. Jones, who hadn't played a game at any level since Nov. 9, when he got the start for the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League, stopped Perry, Getzlaf, Nick Bonino, Saku Koivu, Teemu Selanne, Dustin Penner, Kyle Palmieri, Matt Beleskey and Perreault in the tiebreaker. Hiller matched Jones through eight rounds before King's goal after he had made 49 saves in regulation and overtime. The Ducks remain the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss at home (10-0-2), but there was a sense of disappointment after L.A. imposed its methodical ways on Anaheim. In a prelude to the Jan. 25 Stadium Series game at Dodger Stadium, the game featured all the near-misses and exciting ebbs and flows that have become typical of the Kings-Ducks rivalry. In overtime, the Ducks couldn't score on a two-man advantage, and the Kings' Jake Muzzin missed a prime chance in front during a 4-on-3 power play. Kings captain Dustin Brown ended a six-game goal-scoring drought with a shot that went off Hiller's glove and bounced into the net at 5:43 of the third to tie it 2-2. A big special-teams swing in the third period saw the Ducks take a 2-1 lead. Perry induced a holding penalty on Slava Voynov and was left alone on Jones for a backhand goal to convert the power play at 2:14 of the third. Dustin Penner made a great play to bat the puck over to Perry in a thicket of players. Anaheim found its game about halfway through the second when Getzlaf made up for a costly turnover when he swatted in Hampus Lindholm's midair rebound at 7:51. Los Angeles appeared gassed and couldn't backcheck the rush, allowing Getzlaf to position himself on the right side for his 14th goal, one shy of his total last season. Forty-six seconds earlier, it was Getzlaf who sent a pass through the middle off a faceoff that Jeff Carter easily intercepted before roofing a wrist shot past Hiller at 7:05. Jones matched Hiller in an entertaining second period. He stoned Penner on a terrific backhand chance off a Getzlaf pass. Hiller stopped King on a 2-on-1 after Sami Vatanen lost the puck in Anaheim's zone.
No comments:
Post a Comment