Winnipeg @ Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2
Alexander Burmistrov's second goal of the season broke a third-period tie and helped the Jets defeat the Maple Leafs 4-2 at Air Canada Centre. Burmistrov stepped out of the penalty box after serving a holding the stick penalty and found himself on a 2-on-1 with Blake Wheeler. They made two passes before Burmistrov finished the play by slipping the puck past Toronto goalie James Reimer with 2:05 remaining. The Jets are 5-2-0 on the road; the Maple Leafs are 1-4-1 at home. Burmistrov played three seasons in the NHL before playing the past two with Kazan Ak-Bars of the Kontinental Hockey League. The 24-year-old said he was getting frustrated with his lack of goal-scoring and was relieved to see the puck go into the net. Burmistrov said he was concerned he had put the Jets in a hole when he took the penalty, his second of the game, at 15:47 with the score tied 2-2. Wheeler, who had two assists and leads the Jets with 16 points, made it perfectly clear he wanted the puck from Burmistrov, who had taken a pass from Bryan Little to create the 2-on-1. Burmistrov dropped the puck to Wheeler and skated toward the net, where he took a return pass for the goal. Dustin Byfuglien gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 3:41 of the first period when he took a pass from Mathieu Perreault, who was behind the net, and snapped a perfectly placed shot between the post and Reimer. It was Byfuglien's third goal of the season. The Maple Leafs tied it 1-1 at 8:22 when PA Parenteau scored his second of the season. Tyler Bozak took a shot that was deflected wide but right onto the stick of Parenteau, who swept it past Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec. The Jets had a 2-1 lead 37 seconds later after Mark Scheifele took advantage of Reimer being down to snap a shot into the open net for his fifth of the season. Toronto tied it 2-2 at 12:17 of the second period on a delayed penalty. Maple Leafs defenseman Roman Polak drove to the net with the puck and at the last second slipped a pass to Leo Komarov, who redirected it past Pavelec for his fifth of the season. Toronto had a good chance to grab the lead at 14:14 of the third period when James van Riemsdyk broke in alone, but Pavelec made a save and then turned back the rebound. Bryan Little scored a shorthanded, empty-net goal with 26 seconds remaining, his sixth of the season. Toronto coach Mike Babcock said he was pleased with the effort but disappointed the Maple Leafs had nothing to show for it. He said they generated enough chances late in the game to produce a better result. Wheeler said the Jets wanted to redeem themselves after a 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday.
Alexander Burmistrov: "Oh, I can't even explain how big this goal is for me. It has been tough for me since I came back. It is a great feeling now for us to win the game and for me to score that big goal. When you sit in the box, the first thing you are hoping is that we're not going to give up a goal; you hope time will run out. Then you also hope when time runs out someone on our team will have the puck and give it to me for a breakaway."
Blake Wheeler: "I think everyone in the building knew I wanted that puck. I might have woke my kid up in Winnipeg, I slapped my stick on the ice pretty hard. I saw the opportunity for a 2-on-1 and I just wanted to be involved. We're a team with a lot of size and a lot of speed. I thought it was really important how we approached the game. We knew it was going to be a difficult game. We didn't come in here looking at their record and thinking about seeing how many goals we can get and how fast. We knew it would be a grind all night."
Thursday, November 05
Winnipeg @ Ottawa Senators 2-3 SO
The Senators defeated the Jets 3-2 in a shootout for their second home win of the season. Bobby Ryan, Kyle Turris and Mika Zibanejad scored in the shootout for Ottawa, which is 2-3-2 at Canadian Tire Centre. Ryan and Cody Ceci gave the Senators a 2-0 lead. Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien, with goals late in the second period and early in the third, scored to tie it for Winnipeg. Craig Anderson made 38 saves for the Senators; Michael Hutchinson made 29 for the Jets. Anderson stopped Blake Wheeler and Andrew Ladd in the shootout, sprawling to poke-check Ladd. Hutchinson made back-to-back saves on Curtis Lazar and Turris with less than two minutes left in the third period. Byfuglien, who had a strong game at both ends, tied it 26 seconds into the third period. Playing 4-on-4, he stripped the puck from Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson at the Winnipeg blue line and headed up ice. Byfuglien skated into the left-wing circle and scored his fourth goal of the season with a shot to the glove side. Jets coach Paul Maurice said he hasn't seen Byfuglien play as well as he has lately. Recognizing Anderson deserved to be first star, Maurice said Byfuglien was the skater who stood out. Ladd made it 2-1 at 17:19 of the second period, ending a long sequence when the Jets had the Senators running around their zone.
Wheeler took a hit behind the Ottawa net from Senators defenseman Mark Borowiecki and passed the puck to Ladd, who was positioned on the goal line to Anderson's right. Ladd's shot from a sharp angle went in for his fourth goal of the season. Ryan put the Senators ahead 2-0 at 12:04 of the second period when he finished a crisp 2-on-1 break. He scored his fifth of the season off a pass from Zibanejad. Ryan has four goals, two assists and 24 shots in his past six games. Ceci scored off a faceoff through a screen at 10:01 of the first period. All three Senators in the shootout opted to shoot instead of deke: Ryan scored on the stick side, Turris on the glove side, and Zibanejad on the stick side.
Dustin Byfuglien: "We got behind the eight ball and we stuck to our game plan pretty well. I didn't feel like we were ever out of it. We got a point out of it on a back-to-back. It's a rough road trip. We've had a hard schedule and I thought we've done pretty well as a team and played pretty good hockey."
Paul Maurice: "Past that, [Byfuglien] was the best player on the ice tonight, the most dominant force, and he's been like that for a while. Right after [playing the New York Rangers on Oct. 13], probably [against the Calgary Flames] at home when we got back off that first trip, he's been as good as I've ever seen him play. He's been good for a while. It's harder to see one player dominate a game. We went a run of Tampa [Bay], L.A., St. Louis, Chicago, so it's hard for a guy to kind of elevate against the way he has, it's nothing to do with Ottawa, it's just when you're playing big, strong, physical teams, you notice [him]. He's at both ends of the rink now. He's just moving faster, moving quicker."
Michael Hutchinson: "Not really [surprised they opted to shoot]. They're all three good shooters and they made good shots. I'd like to have one or two of those, but at the same time, they're great shooters."
Nashville @ Minnesota 3-2
Cody Hodgson picked a good time to score his first goal with the Predators.
Hodgson's goal with 5:21 remaining in the third period helped the Predators to a 3-2 win against the Wild at Xcel Energy Center. With the game tied at 2-2, Hodgson took a shot from the right circle that was stopped by Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk. The puck rolled around in Dubnyk's equipment, but there was no whistle. The puck landed on the ice between his legs and Hodgson poked it into the net. Dubnyk thought there would be a whistle. When he moved, the puck fell to the ice for Hodgson to tap in. The victory capped a four-game road trip for the Predators where they went 2-1-1. The game was Nashville's first against a Central Division opponent. Minnesota was defeated on home ice for the first time this season and may be without Zach Parise for some time. He sustained a lower-body injury on the second shift of the game and did not play in the second and third periods. Coach Mike Yeo has already ruled him out for the game Saturday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yeo said a further update would be provided on Friday. With Parise as well as Nate Prosser, who missed the third period with a lower-body injury, missing time, Minnesota was forced to mix and match their forward lines and defensive pairings. Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne stopped 27 shots for his seventh win in 10 starts. Dubnyk finished with 21 saves. The Wild pulled him for an extra attacker with 2:05 remaining and had 1:39 of power-play time to end the game but was unable to tie the score. Minnesota scored twice with the man-advantage earlier in the game but never led. Nashville scored late in the second period, taking advantage of a slow line change by Minnesota. Shea Weber retrieved the puck in his own end and hit Mike Fisher with a long outlet pass. Fisher skated in alone and beat Dubnyk blocker side for his second at 16:06 to give the Predators a 1-0 lead. Less than two minutes later, Wild defenseman Marco Scandella tied it at 1-1 on a snap shot under Rinne's blocker at 17:36. Roman Josi gave the Predators the lead 12 seconds into the third period, intercepting an errant clearing attempt and firing a shot through traffic. The goal extended Josi's point streak to four games.
Matt Dumba scored a power-play goal at 6:51 to tie the game at 2-2.
Devan Dubnyk: "Just like that, a hard-fought, 60-minute game and it's over. It's disappointing to have it go that way."
Mike Yeo: "Bottom line is, we're losing Zach and we're probably going to lose some offense. Some guys are going to have to step up for sure."
Ryan Suter: "Chaos. There were a lot of whistles and everyone was with everyone. There was a lot going on and it was a tough game to get into with all the whistles."
Cody Hodgson: "The puck just dropped below his pads and I was able to jam it in. I think more importantly, it was the way we battled at the end there."
Peter Laviolette: "It's one of many, but it's a good way to start in the division. There wasn't a lot of room out there. You just had to grind it out."
Colorado @ Phoenix 2-4
Nicklas Grossman has said that he takes more satisfaction in blocking shots than scoring goals. But after 543 NHL games and a decade of bumps and bruises, a victory in the first two-goal game of his career was pretty satisfying.
Grossmann scored in the first and second periods to help the Coyotes built a 3-1 lead, and they held on for a 4-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche. Martin Hanzal and Mikkel Boedker each had two assists. But for one night the offensive star was Grossmann, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound crease-clearer who had never scored two goals in the same calendar month, let alone a game. Coyotes goalie Mike Smith made 26 saves, including big ones on Francois Beauchemin and Alex Tanguay in the final minute to protect a one-goal lead before Jordan Martinook hit the empty net with 15 seconds remaining. Cody McLeod also scored for Colorado. Semyon Varlamov made 24 saves for the Avalanche, who began a stretch during which they will play 12 of 15 games on the road. Hanzal, who returned after missing two games with a lower-body injury, is tied for the NHL lead with 12 assists. He's never had more than 27 assists in a season, a feat he accomplished as a rookie in 2007-08. Playing between Tobias Rieder and Anthony Duclair (five goals each), Hanzal is piling up the assists but has yet to score a goal himself. The Coyotes allowed three first-period goals in a 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in their last home game, and Colorado had the early momentum with seven early shots on Smith before Grossmann's first goal turned the tide. After putting a shot toward the net from the right point, Grossmann got a second chance off a Rieder takeaway and wristed another shot from the same spot. Rookie Tyler Gaudet set a nice screen between two Colorado defenders and the puck skipped past Varlamov at 7:05. The Coyotes doubled the lead at 2:41 of the second period on another Avalanche turnover. Hanzal took the puck away from Colorado's Nikita Zadorov and pushed it toward Rieder outside the right circle. Rieder's snap shot hit Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog and dove down and under Varlamov. Rieder's fifth goal of the season tied him with rookies Duclair and Max Domi for the team lead. Colorado responded 1:07 later. Erik Johnson spilt defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Michael Stone and took a shot that Smith stopped. But the rebound came out to the high slot, where McLeod was waiting to pop in his second goal and make it a 2-1 game. However, the Coyotes answered 1:28 later when Grossmann scored again. Hanzal found Grossmann at the high point for a shot that Varlamov stopped and tried to flick away. But the puck ricocheted off Avalanche defenseman Ben Street, who came crashing into the crease with Coyotes forward Steve Downie. The puck slid across the goal line, and Grossmann was credited with the goal at 5:16. Roy challenged the goal, which was upheld by review. Varlamov kept the game close with big saves on breakaways by Rieder and Boedker in the third period, before slipped around Hanzal and beat Smith by roofing a short-side wrist shot. But Smith, who had allowed 25 goals on 169 shots in his past seven games, came up big late to keep out the equalizer. Matt Duchene brought the Avalanche within 3-2 when he scored with 3:46 left to play.
Matt Duchene: "It was close. I think we had some good chances. I felt like everything they got, we gave them. It's tough to lose that one with as many good things as we did."
Patrick Roy: "That goal kind of changed our game. We didn't keep the same pace that we should have. I thought [Downie] pushed our forward into the goalie. Plus at first I thought the referee had the intention to blow the whistle before the puck went in. I guess it didn't work out."
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