Buffalo Sabres @ Nashville 4-1
Sam Reinhart scored two goals to help the Sabres to a 4-1 win against the Predators at Bridgestone Arena. Reinhart gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead on the power play at 16:13 of the second period on a wrist shot from the high slot that beat Predators goaltender Juuse Saros. Matt Moulson passed the puck to Reinhart at the point, where he shot it past Saros to the glove side for his fifth goal. Reinhart gave the Sabres a 3-1 lead 58 seconds into the third period on a wrist shot in front. He took a shot that deflected off Saros' skate and into the net for his sixth goal of the season and second of the game. Ryan O'Reilly scored an empty-net goal at 17:47 of the third period to make it 4-1. Sabres goaltender Chad Johnson made 28 saves in his second start in two days. Johnson has started to see the results of his good play during November; he is 3-1-1 with eight goals allowed in seven games. He thinks the Sabres are starting to come together collectively. Jamie McGinn tied the game 1-1 at 13:09 of the second period on a scramble in front of Saros on the power play. Saros made the initial save, but McGinn was able to put the rebound past him for his fourth goal. Viktor Arvidsson was called for a major cross-checking penalty against Carlo Colaiacovo and received a game misconduct at 11:43 of the second period that led to Buffalo's power-play goals. Mike Fisher gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 11:42 of the first period on a wrist shot from in front on a power play. James Neal made a no-look backhand pass through traffic that Fisher one-timed past Johnson for his fifth goal and third in his past three games. Nashville has scored six goals in its past six games (1-4-1), and has been shut out three times during that span. Saros made 20 saves in his NHL debut.
Peter Laviolette: "I think we can play at a higher tempo. I think that's when we're at our best. I think we had more push in that area tonight."
Winnipeg @ Colorado 3-5
Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog each had a goal and two assists, and the Avalanche held on for a 5-3 win against the Jets at Pepsi Center on Saturday.
Goalie Semyon Varlamov made 25 saves to help the Avalanche win for the third time in 10 home games this season. Duchene scored into an empty net on a power play with 16.4 seconds remaining for his 11th goal in November, breaking the Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques record he held with Claude Lemieux.
Trailing 3-0 early in the second period, the Jets closed to 3-2 on goals by Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler that came 4:32 apart. Ladd scored at 9:05 when he tipped Jacob Trouba's point shot behind Varlamov. Wheeler scored while shorthanded at 13:37 with Anthony Peluso in the penalty box for tripping Landeskog. Alexander Burmistrov passed to Wheeler skating into the slot for a backhand shot past Varlamov's stick. Landeskog has two goals and six assists in a five-game scoring streak since returning from a two-game suspension for a hit on Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins on Nov. 12. Avalanche rookie Chris Wagner put the Avalanche ahead 4-2 at 2:48 of the third period. He accepted Jack Skille's backhand pass and shot the puck behind goalie Michael Hutchinson off Jets Adam Pardy. It was Wagner's second NHL goal in 26 games. He scored his first Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators.
Winnipeg cut the deficit to 4-3 on Trouba's goal at 10:54. He spun around Colorado's Blake Comeau above the left circle, moved in and scored through traffic for his second goal of the season and first in eight games. The Jets, who defeated the Minnesota Wild 3-1 on Friday, went 1-2-0 on their three-game road trip. They are 1-6-1 in their past eight road games. The Avalanche took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Comeau and Landeskog, who scored 4:26 apart. Comeau, who has scored all three of his goals in the past seven games, knocked Pardy off the puck at center ice, gained possession and beat Hutchinson on a breakaway at 6:35.
Landeskog made it 2-0 at 11:01 after Francois Beauchemin dumped the puck off the end boards. The puck caromed toward the side of the net off Duchene into the slot, and Landeskog drilled it past Hutchinson. Carl Soderberg scored at 5:55 of the second period to give the Avalanche a 3-0 lead. Duchene passed to Soderberg skating down the slot. He cut to the right and tucked the puck inside the post.
Matt Duchene: "It feels good. Any time you're among some of the names that have played in this organization, it's nice. I didn't change much, some little changes I made since the start of the season, and I'm playing with two amazing hockey players in Gabe and Nate [MacKinnon]. So much credit goes to those guys."
Gabriel Landeskog: "We expected a push out of those guys. They come back and make it a one-goal game, and we get a huge goal by [Wagner]. That's what you need from your third and fourth line, to chip in when the game's on the line and play well and be plus players."
Chris Wagner: "We were battling down low, the puck kind of squirted out, Skille won a race for it and made a nice backhand pass. I just threw it on the net as hard as I could, and we got a nice bounce off the [defenseman] there."
Patrick Roy: "It just feels like it always has to be the hard way for us, but I like what I'm seeing. I like the resilience of our guys. The compete level tonight ... [the Jets] are a good hockey club."
Paul Maurice: "All I'll say about the game is our team gave what it had to give. It wasn't an easy start, it's not an easy game to get rolling. They're at home, they're rolling, they were good in the start. I don't think we were casual about our game, we just couldn't get it going. [The Jets] skated as hard as they could and they played as hard as they could, and we just couldn't catch up."
"We didn't have the legs we needed to compete at that level in the first period. It's still not a lopsided period, but we gave up a couple of good chances, and they scored on them. They certainly were in control of the game."
Chicago @ Los Angeles Kings 2-3 OT
Marian Gaborik singlehandedly ended the Blackhawks' third-period stranglehold and got the Kings' homestand off on a high note. Gaborik scored in the third period and at 2:04 of overtime to give the Kings a 3-2 win at Staples Center.
Gaborik beat Chicago goalie Scott Darling on a breakaway with a wrist shot for his second goal of the game to complete the comeback for the Kings, who erased a 2-0 deficit in the third period and handed the Blackhawks their first loss in 42 games when leading after two periods (42-0-1), dating to Game 7 of the 2014 Western Conference Final won by the Kings. The Kings tied it 2-2 on Gaborik's first goal at 14:05 of the third. Brent Seabrook lost the puck in front of his net and Anze Kopitar grabbed it and made a backhand pass that Gaborik converted. It was Gaborik's fourth and fifth goals.
The frantic finish came after Chicago's Patrick Kane set the record for the longest point streak by an American-born player at 19 games. Kane scored on a shot to the upper right corner on the power play at 11:10 of the first after Duncan Keith nudged the puck to him in the slot.
It was Kane's 14th goal of the season and 11th of the streak. He had the secondary assist on Chicago's second goal. Phil Kessel and Eddie Olczyk each had 18-game point streaks, for the Boston Bruins in 2008-09 and Toronto Maple Leafs in 1989-90, respectively. Kane tied Denis Savard (1985-86) for the second-longest streak in Blackhawks history; Bobby Hull had a 21-game streak in 1971-72.
Jeff Carter scored 52 seconds into the third period to cut the deficit to 2-1. He got his own rebound and lifted a shot over Darling for his 10th goal. Chicago took a 2-0 lead on Niklas Hjalmarsson's slap shot that beat Kings goalie Jonathan Quick glove side and banked off the post at 12:56 of the second. The sequence started when the Kings couldn't break out, and Keith worked the puck out of the corner to set up Hjalmarsson's first goal this season. Keith has four goals and four assists in eight games since he returned from a knee injury.
Chicago finished its "Circus Trip" 3-1-2 and came excruciating close to 4-1-1. Jonathan Toews shot wide on a breakaway in the waning seconds of regulation, and Seabrook had a near miss in overtime.
Patrick Kane: "It's cool when you think about how many great American players have played the game and the two players that were at that 18-game point streak and what they've done in their careers. It's pretty cool right now, but it was kind of overshadowed by the loss. That's the way the League is right now. If we came out with a better effort there in the third, and tried to take it to them, I think we would have had a different result, but we just kind of sat back and they took it to us."
Joel Quenneville: "Well, we got a point. We got our chance. [Toews] had a breakaway late, and we had two A-plus chances in overtime. They had some high quality as well, so it was a pretty good trip."
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