Tampa Bay @ Carolina 4-3
Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves in his first game of the season. He missed the first month after surgery to remove a blood clot. Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper changed his line combinations after the first period, trying to jump-start the Lightning after falling behind 1-0 on an Eric Staal power-play goal at 15:07 of the first period. On the power play, Kris Versteeg won a battle behind the net and moved the puck to Staal, who backhanded his fourth goal past Vasilevskiy from the left post. Tampa Bay's line-juggling paid immediate dividends when Ryan Callahan tied the game 38 seconds into the second period. Ondrej Palat stripped the puck from John-Michael Liles before making a pass to Callahan's backhand at the top of the crease to beat Cam Ward. The Lightning took a 2-1 lead with six seconds left in the second on the man-advantage when Stamkos scored his sixth goal on a one-timer from inside the blue line after crisp passes from Anton Stralman and Nikita Kucherov. The power-play opportunity came after Hurricanes rookie defenseman Noah Hanifin was called for high sticking against Stamkos. J.T. Brown extended the Lightning lead to 3-1 on a goal at 4:07 of the third period. After Valtteri Filppula chipped the puck ahead in the neutral zone, Brown streaked down the left wing past two defenders and lifted a backhand shot inside the far post. Brown's goal added an interesting twist to his family's sports history. Next door to PNC Arena is Carter-Finley Stadium, where his father, Ted Brown, was an All-American running back at North Carolina State in the 1970s before playing eight seasons in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings. Adding to Tampa Bay's relief, Tyler Johnson scored his first goal of the season at 9:16, snapping a shot past Ward from below the right circle for a 4-1 lead. Johnson scored 29 goals last season. Carolina made the final score close in the final minutes. Versteeg scored with 4:35 remaining after taking a long pass from Victor Rask and scoring on a breakaway to make it 4-2. Versteeg had three points, as did Rask, who assisted on all three Hurricanes goals. Then with Ward pulled and the extra attacker on for Carolina, Jordan Staal scored his first of the season on a slap shot with one second remaining to close out the scoring.
Buffalo @ NY Islanders 2-1
Linus Ullmark made 29 saves to lift the Sabres to a 2-1 win. Rookie Sam Reinhart broke a tie when he scored the game-winning goal with 6:16 remaining. Matt Moulson scored for the Sabres, who won back-to-back games for the first time this season thanks in part to the play of their 22-year-old goaltender. Ullmark, who had hip surgery last spring, has allowed two goals on 58 shots over the stretch. Reinhart gave the Sabres their first lead of the game when he redirected David Legwand's feed past Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss for his second goal at 13:44 of the third period. Calvin de Haan scored for the Islanders, who played a second straight game without captain John Tavares because of flu-like symptoms. Greiss made 20 saves. After a scoreless first period, de Haan got the Islanders on the board with his first goal of the season 13:42 into the second. With the teams at even strength and the Islanders pressuring, de Haan received a pass from Cal Clutterbuck and beat Ullmark with a shot through traffic from the slot to give New York a 1-0 lead. Greiss preserved the lead with his biggest save of the game less than three minutes later when he got his left pad on Moulson's backhand shot after a bad line change by the Islanders allowed Moulson to get sent in on a breakaway. Kyle Okposo nearly doubled the lead for New York one minute into the third period when he took one stride over the blue line and ripped a slap shot that got past Ullmark but hit the far goal post. Buffalo tied it at 6:20 of the third when Moulson scored his fourth goal. Moulson, a former Islanders forward who was celebrating his 32nd birthday, took a cross-ice feed from Zemgus Girgensons and poked it past Greiss to make it 1-1. Ullmark prevented the Islanders from regaining the lead with 9:56 remaining when he managed to get across the crease to deny Steve Bernier's one-timer from point-blank range after a feed from the corner by Mikhail Grabovski. Sabres center Tyler Ennis returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games because of a lower-body injury.
No comments:
Post a Comment