NHL - Central - December 12-13, 2015

Saturday, December 12

Colorado @ Nashville 3-2
Andreas Martinsen's goal at 9:37 of the third period helped the Avalanche to a 3-2 win against the Predators at Bridgestone Arena. With the teams at even strength, the puck popped up in the air after a shot by Carl Soderberg and Martinsen was able to swat it past Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne for his second goal of the season. Francois Beauchemin and Nick Holden scored and Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves for Colorado. Miikka Salomaki and Craig Smith had goals for Nashville. Rinne made 22 saves. Smith tied the game 58 seconds into the third period on a one-timer from the point. He took a pass from Ryan Ellis and his shot beat Varlamov for his seventh goal. Beauchemin gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 8:37 of the first period on the power play. The Predators had a miscommunication and weren't able to clear the puck out of the zone. Beauchemin took a pass from Nathan MacKinnon and shot it past Rinne for his third goal. Holden doubled the Avalanche's lead at 14:38 of the first period just as another power-play opportunity expired. Holden drove to the net, received a pass from Alex Tanguay and one-timed a shot past Rinne for his second goal. Nashville went 0-for-5 on the power play. Colorado was able to get in the shooting lanes and block shots and got some help from the goal posts. The Avalanche were outshot 10-1 in the second period but were able to kill three penalties to keep the Predators from capitalizing on their momentum.
Salomaki scored to make it 2-1 with 7.7 seconds remaining in the first period. Ellis took the original shot from the point, and Salomaki redirected the puck past Varlamov for his third goal. Colorado will travel to play the St. Louis Blues on Sunday in the second game of a three-game road trip. Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog missed his second consecutive game because of a back injury. He could return on Sunday.

Andreas Martinsen: "It was a dirty one, an ugly goal, but I think our line, we were going the whole night. We were working them down low and being physical and taking pucks to the net. In the end you get rewarded with a little ugly one, so that was nice for all three of us."
"I think that was the big thing for us today. They have a really good power play so those guys out there did a great job blocking shots and getting in the lanes. [Varlamov] too had a couple of really big saves there. That's a big part of the win today."
Patrick Roy: "[Varlamov] was really good. He made some really good saves, especially in those [penalty kills] as well, but overall, yes he was very solid. I like to say that our guys played well in front of him. Our [defensemen] were sharp with the breakout. I thought we did a good job."
Francois Beauchemin: "Yeah, good shot, but good screen in front by [Avalanche forward Matt Duchene]. [Rinne] didn't see it. That's all we needed on the power play. Just keep things simple, putting pucks on net with traffic in front. Tonight was a good example of how we have to score goals."
"We've got a lot of character on that team. We lost some big games early, but we know the situation we're in and who we're playing against in the next few games. Those are games we'll have to win if we want to keep getting in the race."
Matt Duchene: "We took a lot of penalties. Too many, I think. We took a lot more than we would've liked to, but our [penalty kill] was there when we needed it tonight. [Varlamov] was outstanding, and we got a couple of good bounces off of some goal posts. The guys on the [penalty kill] did a [heck] of a job tonight."
Peter Laviolette: "Colorado came in here in the first period with a pretty pointed game. It was direct. It was physical. It was fast. We were catching them in the first period and we need to be better. I'm not going to make any excuses. We need to be ready for that at the start of the game."

Sunday, December 13

Vancouver Canucks @ Chicago 0-4
Patrick Kane extended his point streak to 26 games in the Chicago Blackhawks' 4-0 victory against the Vancouver Canucks at United Center, but goalie Corey Crawford is on a hot streak of his own. Crawford made 30 saves against the Canucks for his second straight shutout, fourth of the season and 16th of his NHL career. Kane kept his streak going with a secondary assist on a power-play goal by Duncan Keith that made it 1-0 Chicago at 11:51 of the first period.

The streak, which is the longest by an American-born NHL player and the longest in Blackhawks history, surpassed a 25-game streak by Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby in 2010-11. It is the longest since Mats Sundin had a 30-game streak in 1992-93 for the Quebec Nordiques. Kane's assist came off a pass to Keith at the point to start a sequence that eventually turned into Keith's goal off a snap shot. Artemi Panarin, who hit the left post with a one-timer after Keith gave him a feed, returned the favor after getting his own rebound. Kane was sitting on the bench when he realized he had added another game to his streak. Rookie center Dennis Rasmussen, rookie forward Brandon Mashinter and Andrew Shaw scored for Chicago. Shaw and Rasmussen each had an assist for a two-point night, and Mashinter's goal was the first of his NHL career.

Crawford's hot stretch started in Chicago's 3-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at United Center on Dec. 6. Since then, he's allowed two goals on 123 shots in four starts (4-0-0), has a 0.50 goals-against average and .984 save percentage, and hasn't allowed a goal in 140:46. His shutout was nearly negated with an apparent Vancouver power-play goal by Daniel Sedin with 6:30 left in the third. Chicago's 2-0 lead was preserved, though, when the goal was called off because of a hand pass. Ryan Miller made 26 saves for Vancouver, which lost the opener of a six-game road trip after winning its previous two games. Neither team scored in the second period, but the goalies had a lot to do with it. Crawford made 14 saves, and Miller had 11, including a post-to-post save at 15:01 to deny Panarin a goal on a one-timer set up by Kane. Crawford made back-to-back saves at 8:51 of the second on a slap shot by Ben Hutton and a follow-up wrist shot by Yannick Weber off the rebound. In the third, Rasmussen scored at 11:36 to make it 2-0, tapping the puck into the net after a shot by left wing Bryan Bickell got through Miller. Shaw scored into an empty net with 30.8 seconds left, and Mashinter scored the fourth goal with 9.8 seconds to play. Marian Hossa played his 1,200th NHL game, Niklas Hjalmarsson his 500th, and Canucks forward Radim Vrbata his 900th.

Corey Crawford: "It's a matter of preparing yourself and being focused each game. Just because you play well in the last one doesn't mean it's going to be easy, and our team is starting to come around. Our [penalty kill] is really strong, and it seems like it's getting better and better. We just have to keep it going."
"I started out [the season] pretty strong, [but] kind of dipped a little bit. Now I'm able to get back and have that focus and that preparation ... that battle throughout the whole game."
Patrick Kane: "I passed it and it went in 10 or 15 seconds later. I actually didn't know I got an assist until I heard them announce it. I was hoping they didn't get it wrong and then maybe they've got to call it back."