Winnipeg @ Boston Bruins
The Jets used a balanced attack to make sure their four-game, season-opening road trip started on the right foot. Six Jets scored, 12 had at least one point, and Winnipeg had three goals in the second period and three in the third to come from behind and defeat the Bruins 6-2 at TD Garden. The Jets franchise hadn't won here since March 31, 2007, a stretch of 13 straight losses, when it was known as the Atlanta Thrashers. Winnipeg trailed 1-0 and was outshot 14-6 in the first period.
Alexander Burmistrov and Drew Stafford each had one goal and one assist. Chris Thorburn, Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Nicolas Petan also scored.
Petan made his NHL debut and scored when an Andrew Copp shot deflected off the back of his skate past Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask at 9:51 of the first period. It wasn't exactly how the 20-year-old imagined his first NHL goal. Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec made 29 saves on 31 shots; Rask made 26 saves on 31 shots.
Scheifele tied the score 1-1 at 5:26 of the second period. After a pass by Bruins defenseman Joe Morrow to the neutral zone was broken up by Nikolaj Ehlers, Dustin Byfuglien gained the Boston zone and fed a pass back to Scheifele at the right hash mark for a snap shot. The Jets took a 2-1 lead at 9:17 on Wheeler's one-timer from the right hash mark after a pass from behind the net from Ladd, who stripped the puck from Bruins defenseman Matt Irwin. Stafford scored on a touch pass across the slot by Adam Lowry at 17:39 to give them a 3-1 lead.
The Jets took advantage of defensive breakdowns by the Bruins on their three second-period goals. Boston was without top defenseman Zdeno Chara, who missed the game with an upper-body injury. Even before that, the Bruins were trying to integrate younger defensemen and new veterans, and the unit struggled and received little help from the forwards when Boston didn't have the puck. David Pastrnak got the Bruins within 3-2 1:25 into the third period, but Thorburn put the Jets ahead 4-2 at 5:17. Boston held a 1-0 first-period lead on a goal by David Krejci. Pastrnak stole the puck from Ben Chiarot on the forecheck below the goal line and spun a shot toward the front of the net after skating back out front. Chiarot tried to clear it, but it went right to Krejci, who flipped in a backhand at 5:36.
Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman drops the ceremonial puck with Zdeno Chara and Andrew Ladd.
Andrew Ladd: "I think it was just being a little sharper and moving our feet. They're a quick team and we were on our heels in the first. We kind of had to get going and try and play in their end."
Ladd recalled how the Jets won their opener last season, 6-2, with four goal-scorers against the Coyotes. Winnipeg lost four in a row after that.
"We've got to keep our heads level here and realize we've got to get better. We didn't play a great game. We got better, but there's still a ton of room for improvement, and hopefully we can do that tomorrow night."
Nicolas Petan: "Not quite [how he imagined his first NHL goal], but nonetheless I'll take it. It's just an exciting feeling."
Paul Maurice: "Well, we were better in the second [period] through the first six minutes, but not a whole lot to show for it, and you can't let it get to [2-0] at that point. ...So once that happened I thought we just started to skate better. At the end of the day, we didn't skate particularly well in the first period, and after that we did, and that's the difference in our team."
Minnesota @ Colorado
Zach Parise completed a hat trick midway through the third period, capping a four-goal rally, and the Wild stunned the Avalanche in a season-opening 5-4 victory at Pepsi Center. Parise started Minnesota's four-goal third period at 5:07 and finished it with a power-play goal at 10:14, giving the Wild their first lead of the game. The go-ahead goal came when he beat Semyon Varlamov with a one-timer from just above the right circle off a Ryan Suter pass with Gabriel Landeskog off for interference.
Parise joined Marc Chouinard as the only Wild players to get a hat trick in a season opener. Chouinard did it Oct. 5, 2005. It was the 49th season-opening hat trick in NHL history. Parise started the rally after defenseman Matt Dumba took a shot that hit Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon. The puck came to Parise, and he beat Varlamov from the right side of the slot. Nino Niederreiter made it 4-3 at 7:05. Jason Zucker was behind the net when he passed to Niederreiter, who scored from between the circles. Thomas Vanek tied the game at 9:18. Charlie Coyle got the play started when he checked Colorado's Matt Duchene off the puck. Mikael Granlund skated down left wing and passed across to Vanek for the tying goal.
The Avalanche, who were shut out four times in six preseason games, scored three times in a 5:15 span of the first period to take a 3-0 lead on power-play goals by Jarome Iginla and Erik Johnson, and an even-strength goal by Landeskog. Iginla opened the scoring at 13:40 of the first period with his 590th NHL goal. MacKinnon passed across to Iginla in the left circle for a quick shot that went past goalie Devan Dubnyk seven seconds after Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin went off for holding. Dubnyk, who made 19 saves, allowed four goals once in 39 starts for the Wild last season, when he was a Vezina Trophy finalist. Johnson, who missed the final 34 games last season because of a knee injury, scored at 17:24 after Koivu was penalized for closing his hand on the puck in front of the Avalanche net. Defenseman Francois Beauchemin, who had three assists in his Avalanche debut after signing as a free agent July 1, passed to Johnson in the high slot for a shot with Duchene screening Dubnyk.
Landeskog scored at 18:55 to make it 3-0. Beauchemin was just inside the blue line when he shot the puck off the end boards. Landeskog retrieved the puck and poked it behind Dubnyk while standing near the left post. The Wild outshot the Avalanche 6-0 in the first 3:08 of the second period, and Parise got them on the board at 6:55. Granlund passed to Parise, who scored from the right hash marks to make it 3-1. The Avalanche answered at 8:07. Johnson took a shot from the right side that Dubnyk stopped, but John Mitchell was right in front and converted the rebound for a 4-1 lead.
Mike Yeo: "We weren't on for sure. It looked like the type of game you play after a weeklong break after you play a couple of, I hate to say it, easy exhibition games. We pretty much kind of sleepwalked through the first two periods. It felt like once they got up they really tried to run at us and that kind of woke our guys up."
Zach Parise: "We moved it around really well right from the break. A good bump back by Mikko [Koivu] to get it in the zone and we were able to get in our positions and set up. That's how we've been practicing it. We've had some pretty entertaining games with these guys. They're fast and they're skilled. It was two really good teams playing and it was entertaining. It was rewarding for us to play better in the third period and sneak out with a win."
Gabriel Landeskog: "Everything we were doing so well in the first two periods and all of a sudden in the third we just stopped doing them. That's what happens when you stop doing the little things right. A team like that, they're going to capitalize. That was embarrassing, unacceptable. A game like this against one of your rivals, first game of the year, you can't let that happen, just roll over and stop playing."
Patrick Roy: "We were really, really good for what, 45 minutes? Even at the start of the third I thought we were solid, kept the puck deep, and all of a sudden they scored that second goal and the momentum shifted and we just couldn't stop it. It's a good team and they certainly deserve what they did in the last 15 minutes."
Semyon Varlamov: "When you score four goals, those games you should win. There's a time when the goalie has to step up and stop those shots, it doesn't matter if they are tough ones or easy ones. I didn't play well tonight. Five goals ... I'm so [angry]."
Carolina Hurricanes @ Nashville 1-2
Rookie forward Viktor Arvidsson's first NHL goal proved to be the game-winner in the Predators' season-opening 2-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes at Bridgestone Arena. After Craig Smith's early power-play goal put Nashville ahead, Arvidsson gave the Predators a 2-0 lead at 17:03 of the first period when he redirected a shot by defenseman Seth Jones past Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward. It was the first NHL goal and point for Arvidsson, who played six games for Nashville last season.
Eric Staal made it 2-1 at 18:20 of the third period when his pass to the slot from the right-wing corner hit Shea Weber's skate and went past Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne. The Hurricanes controlled play after Staal scored but were unable to get another shot on Rinne before time ran out. Jones had two assists and Rinne finished with 25 saves for Nashville. Ward made 23 saves.
Nashville dominated early, and Smith gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 2:23 of the first period when he scored a power-play goal. With Jordan Staal in the penalty box, defenseman Ryan Ellis took a shot from the left point and Smith redirected the puck past Ward. The Predators felt like they sat back too much in the second and third periods. They outshot Carolina 14-5 in the first period and but were outshot 9-8 in the second period and 12-3 in the third.
Carolina was happy with its game in the second and third periods. The Hurricanes were able to create more zone time but weren't able to solve Rinne until late in the game. Defenseman Noah Hanifin made his NHL debut for the Hurricanes. Hanifin, the fifth player and first defenseman taken in the 2015 NHL Draft, played 18:06, blocked a shot and finished with a minus-1 rating.
Hurricanes defenseman James Wisniewski left the ice in the first period with a lower-body injury and did not return. Wisniewski was tangled up along the boards and appeared to be favoring his knee when he went down to the ice. There was no update on Wisniewski's injury after the game.
Viktor Arvidsson: "It hit my leg, so I knew straightaway when it went in that I scored. It was a good shot, and [linemate Calle Jarnkrok] tipped it on my leg so it was a little bit lucky, but it's a goal."
Peter Laviolette: "That line was good. They were generating a lot of offense. I think that's important for our group to get balanced scoring from all three lines. This is a kid that works really hard. He worked really hard last year, came over, learned the game and then in his first opportunity tonight he was able to score a big goal for us."
Shea Weber: "We want to keep playing forward. I think our style is to take it to the other team [and] use our speed and skill to the advantage. We just kind of got to sitting back."
Pekka Rinne: "We did a really good job overall throughout the night. We didn't give them too much. At the end there in those situations, it's really important to get the two points. At the same time, we've got to really bear down those situations where we don't give teams any life."
Craig Smith: "It was a great start. I thought we were moving our feet. We were playing with some tenacity. Obviously the shots on the board showed that but our attempts as well. Our mindset was to get moving in straight lines and shoot the puck, and I thought we did a great job."
Seth Jones: "We played great hockey in the first, but we let off the gas for sure. We knew they weren't going to give up, but we let off the gas. [Rinne] made some huge saves for us, and we got some timely bounces."
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