Edmonton @ Minnesota 3-4
Demoted to the fourth line in the second period against the Oilers, Charlie Coyle knew he needed to come through if he got a chance later in the game. Coyle did just that midway through the third, scoring the game-winning goal at 9:26 in Minnesota's 4-3 victory at Xcel Energy Center.
Coyle scored the game-winner 43 seconds after Ryan Suter's second goal of the night tied the game at 3-3. Coyle, back on the third line with Thomas Vanek and Justin Fontaine, forced a turnover on the forecheck. The puck came to Vanek in the left circle, who fed a pass to Fontaine on the doorstep, but his one-timer went wide. Coyle chased it down, cycled to Vanek behind the net then headed straight to the top of the crease. Vanek found Coyle with a pass near the top of the blue paint, and Coyle chipped it through goaltender Cam Talbot's five-hole for his third goal. Suter and Marco Scandella scored to give the Wild a two-goal lead at 9:30 of the first period. Suter's shot from the top of the left circle went through traffic in front and beat Talbot to the glove side at 7:25 for his first of the season. Scandella's redirection in front came on a nice pass from Vanek along the right half-wall 2:05 later.
Edmonton has lost three in a row after a three-game winning streak, but scored the next three goals. Taylor Hall's shot from near the left post into an open net at 11:09 of the first got the Oilers within one before Iiro Pakarinen's wrist shot deflected off Wild defenseman Matt Dumba and past goalie Devan Dubnyk at 4:41 of the second, tying the game at 2-2. Rookie defenseman Darnell Nurse gave the Oilers a 3-2 lead at 3:38 of the third, cruising into the Wild zone and ripping a slap shot that deflected off Minnesota defenseman Jared Spurgeon's stick and over Dubnyk's glove. It was Nurse's first NHL goal. Five minutes later, Suter tied the game in front after Mikko Koivu's spinning shot from the right half-wall deflected off a stick in front to Suter on the backdoor. It was Suter's first multigoal game since Jan. 14, 2014; he had two goals last season. Koivu's assist extended his point streak to seven games. Dubnyk made a sprawling right-pad save on Connor McDavid with four minutes remaining, then made four saves over the final 52 seconds, when the Oilers had an extra attacker on the ice. Dubnyk made 22 saves, and Talbot made 24.
Charlie Coyle: "I knew I had to come out better in the third. I know I wasn't playing my game. Not a lot of pucks were going our way, so I got away from some things. You can't do that, so I just tried to respond, get back to my game and make something happen."
Thomas Vanek: "I was trying to be patient because I knew they were scrambling after the chance [Fontaine] had. I saw [Coyle] powering his way to the net, so I just tried laying it in there and give him a chance to put it in."
Mike Yeo was coy afterward when asked whether he was sending Coyle a message by moving him down to the fourth line during the second period:
"Whether it was or it wasn't, I think the main thing is that he responded, and that's what you want from players. You want players to have an edge and push back. I think he showed some pride, and the way he played the third period was really positive."
* Zone entries, and controlled zone entries, are such an integral part of how any team manufactures offense. Gain the zone with control, and it opens up the offensive looks a team can generate. Dump the puck in the zone, and while it can be successful, it adds some more variables into the equation. Marco Scandella had a clean zone entry on a power play, which allowed the Wild to score a matter of seconds later. After the second power play unit failed to work the puck up ice a few times with stretch passes, Scandella decided to do it himself, using his speed to evade penalty killers and carry it over the blue line. He left the puck for Thomas Vanek, drove to the net, and tipped home Vanek's return pass off the ice and into the top corner to make it 2-0 Wild.
"When you get a kick-out play, and you drive through, everything opens up. That’s the main thing on the PP break-in," Scandella said.
"His game has really been coming along. You’re starting to see a lot of the things that you think of Marco doing when he’s playing his top game. Obviously the speed of his goal, and the ability to get into the play, but even more important than that, Marco, when he’s on his game, he’s a horse for us. You see him, his skating ability, his ability to play one-on-one, but his ability to separate guys, and then execute with the puck." Yeo said.
* A 200-plus-foot goal for Ryan Suter, his first of the season, and he worked every inch of those 200-plus feet. The Wild lost the puck at its offensive blue line, and Suter skated back for it only to be passed by Connor McDavid. Suter didn't panic though, and chased down McDavid, making a defensive play and helping the Wild to win possession back. He then jumped into the rush, as Suter has done so frequently this season, and took a drop pass from Jason Zucker. Through a sea of red and white jerseys, Suter took a seeing-eye shot that Cam Talbot never saw to give the Wild a 1-0 lead. The goal was pretty emblematic of what Suter has been doing well this season: a sound defensive play, leading to him activating up ice, and finishing with an effective offensive play. Suter wasn't done. After an extended shift in Edmonton's end in the third period, Suter cycled down from his point spot, went to the front of the net, and tipped home a Mikko Koivu pass to tie the game at three. The eight points Suter has in nine games are the most he has had in his first nine games to start a season. He previously had six points in nine games to start three separate seasons (08-09, 09-10, and 14-15).
"It’s how the game is; it’s up-and-down. You’re playing well, and you’re not getting points, but sometimes you’re not playing well, and you’re getting points. I hit three posts in the first three games, and now two goals tonight. Who knows? I’ll probably go another 10 games without even getting a shot now. It’s funny how it works. When you’re defending, you’re just standing there looking for a guy to pick up. It was a lucky bounce, but we’ll take it."
* When the Wild's play stagnated a bit in the second period, Mike Yeo juggled his bottom six forwards, looking for a spark. Erik Haula took a shift in between Thomas Vanek and Justin Fontaine. Then Chris Porter took a shift with Vanek and Charlie Coyle. Yeo tried a few different things and, on one shift, the former trio followed up a strong shift by Koivu's line by continuing to hem Edmonton in deep. The Wild didn't score on those sequences, but the new lines certainly created quality scoring opportunities and puck possession, and as you'll read below, there were fruits to those moves.
* Call it a demotion, or call it whatever you want, but Charlie Coyle responded to being bumped off his line with some hardworking shifts that got him back between Vanek and Fontaine. He then parlayed that spot into a goal. Only 43 seconds after Suter tied the game, Coyle's line got the puck deep. It was worked around the goal line before Vanek flung it toward the crease, and Coyle and his big frame crashed the net, stick on the ice, and got a piece on the backhand, redirecting it into the net. When Coyle was successful early in the season, including a two-goal performance against the St. Louis Blues, he used both his size and speed to create space for himself and his linemates. On his goal, he used that same formula to get to a spot atop the blue paint and put himself in a scoring position.
"Whether I was or whether I wasn't (trying to send him a message), the main thing about that story is he responded. That’s what you want from players." Yeo said.
"I knew I had to come out better in the third, and personally I don’t think I was playing my game. I kind of get away from things sometimes, and you can’t do that. I tried to respond there in the third, and get back to my game." Coyle said.
Los Angeles @ Winnipeg 4-1Milan Lucic said a poor start served as the jolt needed to force his team to face reality three games into the season. Since then, the Kings have excelled and Lucic helped extend their winning streak to six games on a third-period goal with 4:41 remaining in a 4-1 victory against the Jets at MTS Centre. After that start, the Kings are 3-0-0 on the road for the second time in their history. The win wrapped up a two-game Canadian road trip for Los Angeles, which will play six of its next eight games at home. On his game-winning goal, Lucic beat Winnipeg defenseman Tyler Myers to the net before finishing a 2-on-1 rush started by Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Carter, redirecting Toffoli's centering pass behind Winnipeg goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. The Lucic-Carter-Toffoli line continues to be one of the hottest in the League. Lucic's goal extended his points streak to four games (two goals, three assists). Carter has three goals and four assists in his past four games.
Toffoli and Trevor Lewis each scored an empty-net goal in the final minute. Jake Muzzin scored and Carter and Drew Doughty each had two assists for the Kings, who outshot the Jets 14-5 in the third period. Jets rookie Nikolaj Ehlers scored for the third consecutive game. Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick made 24 saves. He has allowed three goals in his past three starts. Pavelec had 28 saves for Winnipeg. The Kings expected an aggressive start from the Jets, and they received one. But Los Angeles survived the early push from Winnipeg and a 1-0 deficit in the second period. Ehlers' fourth goal gave the Jets a 1-0 lead 8:45 into the second period. The 19-year-old, who was the ninth pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, has a four-game points streak (three goals, one assist) and a point in seven of his past eight games. Muzzin's first goal, the first by a Kings defenseman this season, came with 4:10 left in the second period and tied the game. Kings coach Darryl Sutter pointed to the arrival of Lucic, who came to Los Angeles in an offseason trade with the Boston Bruins, as a key addition. Lucic admitted that the rocky start forced some soul-searching inside the Los Angeles dressing room. Learning to match the Kings' experience is still a work in progress in Winnipeg.
Paul Maurice: "They were better at what they're good at and got better in the game at what they're good at. They stayed with it, and we saw more of it halfway through. We invited some of it in the second period, some of the things that we did with the puck through the neutral zone. They controlled the flow of the game in the third period. You're going to see more and more [close-checking] hockey like this, and we'll get better at it, better at playing that style of game, generating offense from it. Just more confidence in what we're good at and having some patience in the game with the puck. [Los Angeles has] got a lot of players that have had success doing exactly what they did [Tuesday], and they're very comfortable staying with it."
Tyler Myers: "There were some spurts in the game where we got away from keeping it simple. We need to focus on chipping pucks in and getting on bodies a little bit more in certain times. I thought we did a lot of good things. But [there are] definitely some things to look at."
Colorado Avalanche @ Florida Panthers 1-4The Panthers' special teams more than made up for loss of leading scorer Jaromir Jagr. Vincent Trocheck had two of the Panthers' three power-play goals and 36-year-old defenseman Brian Campbell scored the first shorthanded goal of his career in a 4-1 victory against the Avalanche at BB&T Center. The Panthers won despite losing Jagr in the first period because of a lower-body injury. He played 2:30 before leaving late in the period and did not return.
Florida is already without center Aleksander Barkov, Jagr's linemate, who is sidelined 2-4 weeks because of a broken hand. Roberto Luongo made 31 saves for the 404th victory of his NHL career, breaking a tie with Grant Fuhr for ninth on the all-time list. Luongo, who had an assist on Trocheck's first goal, lost his shutout bid when Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog scored with 57 seconds remaining. Smith had his power-play goal midway through the third period. Campbell assisted on each of Trocheck's goals, then capped a 5-for-5 night by Florida's penalty-killers by scoring the Panthers' first shorthanded goal of the season, matching their total for all of 2014-15. It's the first time in Panthers history that they have scored four or more goals in a game with all of them coming on the power play or shorthanded. Reto Berra made 24 saves for Colorado, which lost the opener of a three-game road trip and is 0-3-1 in its past four games. The Panthers killed back-to-back penalties midway through the first period, then took the lead with 19.7 seconds remaining on Trocheck's first goal. With Alex Tanguay off for holding, Trocheck carried the puck through center ice and into the Colorado zone, then took a wrist shot from inside the right circle that beat Berra to the far side for a 1-0 lead. Florida killed overlapping penalties early in the second period, including a 52-second stretch when Colorado had a 5-on-3 advantage. Luongo made three saves of his 12 second-period saves while Colorado was up two men. The Panthers made it 2-0 after Avalanche defenseman Francois Beauchemin was called for tripping at 2:44 of the third period. Florida won the draw, and Trocheck one-timed a cross-ice pass by Dmitry Kulikov past Berra from inside the left circle at 2:58 for his fourth goal of the season. Beauchemin went off for cross-checking at 7:51, and Smith hit a half-empty net with two seconds remaining in the power play for his fourth of the season. Campbell scored his first of the season on a shorthanded slap shot from the slot with 5:58 remaining, converting a slick pass by Smith after a Colorado turnover. Landeskog banged a rebound past Luongo for his fifth goal, the only one at even strength by either team. Jarome Iginla played in his 1,400th NHL game. He is the 35th player in League history to reach that milestone.
Patrick Roy: "We just need to put everything together. That's what we're missing right now. Their puck movement, their execution on the power play was better than ours. Our 5-on-5 was solid. The penalty-killing was really sharp until tonight. Now we have to get the power play going in the right direction. I was pleased with our 5-on-5 game. I thought we managed our game well. We did a lot of good things. But our 5-on-5 is clicking and our power play and PK are not."
Gerard Gallant: "It's fun when you have a night like that; three power-play goals and they really moved the puck well. They got rewarded for it. It's good to see that happen. I think it's a groin or hip, something minor. Hopefully tomorrow he's fine."
Jussi Jokinen: "Losing Barkov, then losing Jagr today, we need a little bit more from everybody. We got it tonight."
Vincent Trocheck: "Special teams are huge. Whenever our power play is going, it gets our whole team going."
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