Nashville @ NY Rangers 0-3
The Predators ran into the wrong goalie at the wrong time and found themselves on the wrong side of a shutout again. New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves, and forwards Rick Nash, Derek Stepan and Kevin Hayes scored in a 3-0 victory at Madison Square Garden. Nashville has been shut out in three consecutive games and hasn't scored a goal in the past 213:47. The Predators have 103 shots on goal and are 0-for-10 on the power play in that time. They were 0-for-5 with the man-advantage against the Rangers. Lundqvist improved on his NHL-best goals-against average (1.74) and save percentage (.946) with his second shutout. It was his 12th win, tying him with Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals for the League lead.
The Predators, who were averaging 3.00 goals per game through their first 17 games, have seen that number dip to 2.55 with the three shutout losses.
Their frustration started to show in the third period, when they committed five minor penalties. Center Mike Ribeiro was sent to the dressing room early because of a 10-minute misconduct at 18:13 for arguing with the officials following a slashing call on forward James Neal. Either that or he headed straight to the bar for a well-earned drink.
The worst part for the Predators is that they feel they deserved better in two of the past three games. They had 39 shots on goal and 84 shot attempts in 4-0 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday. They outshot the Rangers 31-19 and finished with a 75-41 advantage in shot attempts. The Predators are so cold that they couldn't even score when Lundqvist was a non-factor. Calle Jarnkrok had a shot go off the crossbar at 8:38 of the third period, and Filip Forsberg missed the net in the second period when Lundqvist was out by the faceoff circles because of an aggressive attempt to play the puck. Forsberg hasn't scored since Oct. 15, a span of 16 games. He scored 26 goals last season. It didn't in part because of Lundqvist and New York's penalty-killers. The Rangers were shorthanded four times in the first period, including a high-sticking double minor by Stepan at 16:39, but blocked seven shots and allowed eight to get to Lundqvist on the penalty kills. The Rangers finished the game with 26 blocked shots, including six from Kevin Klein, who was hobbled by a slap shot from Weber, the winner of the NHL's hardest-shot competition at 2015 NHL All-Star Weekend with a blast of 108.5 mph. The Rangers also got energy again from Nash, who scored his sixth goal of the season and fourth in the past two games on an individual rush at 4:32 of the second period. Nash blew past Mike Fisher and scored from the left circle on a short-side wrist shot.
The Rangers had a 1-0 lead despite being outshot 25-7 through two periods, including 14-6 at even strength. The Predators had a 62-21 advantage in shot attempts. One of New York's shots was a 131-foot slap shot at the end of the first period. The Rangers responded in the third with their best 20-minute stretch. Stepan scored his sixth goal at 4:23, when he was alone in the slot to receive a pass from Marc Staal. Hayes, who also had an assist on Stepan's goal, made it 3-0 with a power-play goal at 10:38. The Rangers had 12 shots on goal in the third. It helped that they got four power plays, including three after Stepan scored.
Peter Laviolette: "You try to work through it, but when it happens three times in a row, you're getting pretty frustrated. I don't think that they're not trying to put it in the net when you end up with 30 quality chances out of 75, 80 attempts at the net. The guys are trying to score, and it's not dropping right now. They worked their tails of tonight and again it didn't go our way."
Shea Weber: "We've got to find a way to stay with it. We can't get frustrated. It's tough to say that when you haven't scored in three games."
Colorado @ Winnipeg 4-1
Cody McLeod's tiebreaking third-period goal helped the Avalanche defeat the Winnipeg Jets 4-1 at MTS Centre. Zach Redmond took a pass just inside the blue line and skated into the slot as the Winnipeg defense collapsed on net. Redmond snapped a low shot on net that bounced off McLeod past Winnipeg goaltender Michael Hutchinson with 13:15 left for McLeod's fifth goal. Matt Duchene's 11th goal, a backhand off the rush with 3:49 to go, ended a late Winnipeg push. Duchene has a seven-game point streak (seven goals, six assists) and 10 goals in November. Blake Comeau's empty-net goal at 18:50 finished the scoring. Comeau also had an assist on McLeod's goal, and defenseman Francois Beauchemin had two assists.
The win ended a three-game losing streak and finished a 4-3-0 road trip for the Avalanche; the trip tied for the longest in Avalanche history. In a stretch of 14 of 18 games on the road, they start a two-game homestand Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators. The win was the first for Colorado in Winnipeg since Dec. 12, 2013.
Winnipeg ended a 2-1-0 homestand and will begin a three-game, four-day road trip Wednesday against the Washington Capitals. The Jets have lost seven of their past nine games (2-6-1) and are 2-6-0 against the Central Division.
Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov made 20 saves in his return from a six-game absence because of a groin injury. Michael Hutchinson made 25 saves for the Jets, who placed goalie Ondrej Pavelec on injured reserve with a sprained knee. Pavelec will be out through at least December, leaving the Winnipeg goaltending to Hutchinson and rookie Connor Hellebuyck.
Toby Enstrom's first goal of the season gave Winnipeg a 1-0 lead 13:40 into the first period. Carl Soderberg's third goal, on a power play with 3:17 left in the second period, tied the game 1-1. Winnipeg had three shots in the first 13:40 when Enstrom sent one from the high point through heavy traffic that fooled Varlamov. The goal was his first since Feb. 19 against Washington. A Dustin Byfuglien cross-checking penalty on Duchene set up the tying goal. Soderberg peeled off the right boards, cut to the net and bounced the puck toward Hutchinson's crease, where it glanced off the skate of Winnipeg defenseman Tyler Myers into the net at 16:43.
The Avalanche needed a winning record on their road trip, which they began Nov. 10 with a 4-9-1 record, to stay in the mix in the Central Division. They remain last in the division five points behind sixth-place Winnipeg and sit 27th in the NHL with 17 points. After the morning skate, Roy had challenged Varlamov to return to the form he displayed in the 2013-14 season when he was a Vezina Trophy finalist. The 27-year-old is 4-6-1 this season with a .894 save percentage and a 3.05 goals-against average. Putting pucks on net for Varlamov to handle was an issue for the Jets. Colorado blocked 20 shot attempts, and Winnipeg missed another 20 attempts.
Cody McLeod: "[This] was a good test for us. Winnipeg is a good, physical team, and I think that you know that every time you come in here it's going to be a battle. For the most part, we answered the bell. We played a full 60-minute good road game."
Patrick Roy: "Sometimes you can lose your focus (at the end of a road trip). I'm very proud of our guys that stayed focused and paid attention to the details of the game. I thought we did a good job defending and found ways to score big goals."
Semyon Varlamov: "I felt pretty good. I've been working a lot on conditioning to stay in shape. It's nice to be back. I think [Roy is] right. He's not going to lie. He's always [telling] the truth. Mentally, it's really tough to play when you're giving up three, four goals every game, because I know that the expectations for me are huge. I know that. I'm ready to play and I just need to stay healthy."
Matt Duchene: "We're teetering on that point where we could lose it too early [in the season] and get too far behind. [This] was a turning point for us hopefully and what we've got to build on going forward."
Paul Maurice: "I don't know that I'm ready to make a sweeping generalization about where we're at as a team. I don't feel that we're that far off. We've got a lot of room to get better as a team. We do. Through two periods, we probably had played as well as we had all [season]. It's a three-period game. We're not getting as many pucks to the net. [I would] like to see us get more clean pucks to the net. We're going to have to find a little simpler, cleaner way to get some pucks to the net."
Michael Hutchinson: "We played well enough to win. It's unfortunate that we didn't, but we just have to come out with the same effort for the rest of the season."
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