NHL - Central - January 4-5, 2016

Monday, January 4

Los Angeles Kings @ Colorado Avalanche 1-4
Jarome Iginla scored his 600th NHL goal and Tyson Barrie had a career-high four points (two goals, two assists) to help the Avalanche to a 4-1 win against the Kings at Pepsi Center. Iginla became the 19th player in League history to reach the milestone when he scored on a power play at 13:02 of the third period. Iginla took a feed from Barrie in the left circle and his centering pass hit Jake Muzzin's skate and caromed behind goalie Jhonas Enroth. Iginla, who had gone three games without a goal, received a rousing ovation from the crowd and was mobbed by his teammates while his achievment was acknowledged on the videoboard above center ice.
Semyon Varlamov made 30 saves for Colorado, who pulled within four points of the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference. The Avalanche were 0-2-2 in their previous four home games. Tyler Toffoli scored and Enroth made 29 saves for Los Angeles, who saw its five-game winning streak end. The Avalanche were 3-for-5 on the power play and have scored 11 goals with the man-advantage in the past seven games.
Duchene, who had one goal in the previous seven games, deflected Barrie's shot over Enroth's right shoulder on a power play to give the Avalanche a 3-1 lead at 1:23 of the third. Barrie scored two goals in the second period to help the Avalanche take a 2-1 lead. He opened the scoring at 6:34 with a power-play goal after Muzzin was penalized for high-sticking Cody McLeod. Duchene passed to Barrie, who was just inside the blue line, for a shot that beat a screened Enroth to the stick side. It was the 12th time in the past 14 games that the Avalanche scored first. The Kings answered with a power-play goal at 11:01 after Varlamov cleared the puck over the glass for a delay-of-game penalty. Kopitar got the puck to Toffoli in the left circle for a shot inside the near post for his fifth goal in five games and 19th of the season. The Avalanche regained the lead at 12:20. Andreas Martinsen led a rush into the Kings end and gave Barrie a drop pass for a shot that went into the net off Enroth's right pad. Colorado played with five defensemen after Erik Johnson sustained a lower-body injury in the second period. He did not return. Iginla had five shots in 13:05 of ice time and has 11 goals this season.

Jarome Iginla: "It does feel good. You try not to think about it. The guys, my teammates, have been great. But we didn't want it to be a distraction and the guys were real focused tonight, they played great and it feels good. It's something where you try not to think about getting close and every chance, every nice pass it's, 'Here maybe, maybe.' You try and stay focused and stuff, but it was nice. You got to get lucky for sure. You got to get lucky at times and that was a lucky play. Tyson gave it to me and I was trying to kind of walk the net and see what opened up from down low. [Gabriel Landeskog] was in front, I think he was battling with Muzzin, and I was trying to put something in there for him, through the screen for him. [Matt Duchene] was going back door. It was a great bounce to go off the skate and in. It was a great bounce on the goal and I feel very blessed to get here. I've played with some great passers and now it's just (about) going forward and winning games."
Patrick Roy: "Very happy for him. Hit a skate and went in. Hey, you put it toward the net and good things happen. It's quite something."
Tyson Barrie: "I couldn't be more happy for [Iginla]. He's one of the best teammates out there, one of the best guys I ever met. It's impressive what he's doing."
"I didn't really have much to do with it [Barrie said he didn't mind being overshadowed by Iginla's accomplishment after setting a career high for points in a game.] I was hoping I'd set him up for a one timer and he'd put it top shelf. I tried to spread out the (penalty killers) and threw it over to him. He said he was trying to shoot for a deflection and it bounced in. It's a cool thing for me to be involved with that. I just want to try to make it to 600 games. Six hundred goals, it's hard to fathom."
"I felt good tonight, shooting the puck well. I just tried to get shots through when I could and it worked out."

Tuesday, January 5

Minnesota Wild @ Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2

Zach Parise said after the morning skate that the Minnesota Wild could not get by scoring one goal a game. He then went out scored his fourth NHL hat trick, his second of the season, to help the Wild defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2 at Nationwide Arena. His third goal, with 57 seconds left into an empty net, gave the Wild a 3-1 lead. Nick Foligno then scored with the extra attacker for Columbus with 16 seconds remaining. Off the faceoff, Blue Jackets center Ryan Johansen tried to get a jump and overskated the puck, enabling the Wild's Mikael Granlund to score into an empty net with 14 seconds left. The two goals in two seconds tied the NHL record, set by the St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins on Dec. 19, 1987. Columbus had a two-game winning streak stopped. Minnesota captain Mikko Koivu was injured in the first period after he went awkwardly into the boards after a collision with David Savard. Koivu was taken to a hospital for precautionary reasons and was to fly home with the Wild. Mike Yeo had to shuffle his lines, but the Wild persevered. Koivu was centering the top line with Parise and Thomas Vanek; Granlund replaced him and had two assists. Ryan Suter had two assists, and Devan Dubnyk made 29 saves. Parise scored three goals against the Colorado Avalanche in the season opener on Oct. 8. He is the second Wild player to have multiple hat tricks in a season (Marion Gaborik did it three times). Parise scored on a delayed penalty with 2:38 left in the first period to end a six-game goal drought. Granlund entered the zone with speed down the left side then fed Parise at the right dot for an off-wing wrist shot that went by Anton Forsberg, who made his first start of the season with injuries to Sergei Bobrovsky (groin) and Curtis McElhinney (ankle). Forsberg, the 118th selection in the 2011 NHL Draft, made 29 saves on 31 shots. Cam Atkinson's 12th goal made it 1-1 at 3:08 of the second period, but Parise scored during a 4-on-4 to put the Wild ahead 2-1 at 12:43 of the second. Granlund found Parise open near the net, and Parise settled the puck on his backhand before going top shelf on the forehand. The 4-on-4 came after Johansen whiffed on a long rebound during a Blue Jackets power play, sending the Wild on an odd-man rush. Savard hooked Coyle to break up the play.

Zach Parise: "Tonight was probably our best game in the offensive zone in quite a while, just the amount of time we spent in there. It's been a while since we had one of those. It was an awesome pass by Granlund, a 7-foot high saucer pass."
Charlie Coyle: "It was pretty gutsy by everyone. A guy goes down early and we're changing lines …"
Mike Yeo: "Everybody played with everybody. It was mass confusion on the bench. It was amazing we didn't take any too-many-men-on-the-ice penalties. The last couple of games his game is really coming on."

Winnipeg Jets @ Nashville Predators 4-1

Drew Stafford scored two power-play goals and Connor Hellebuyck made 43 saves to help the Jets to a 4-1 win against the Predators at Bridgestone Arena.
Ben Chiarot and Alexander Burmistrov scored for Winnipeg. Colin Wilson scored and Pekka Rinne made 14 saves for Nashville. Stafford gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 10:43 of the first period on a goal from the slot on the power play. Tyler Myers entered the zone and delivered a backhand pass to Stafford, who was able to shoot the puck past Rinne for his 13th goal. Stafford scored again at 8:42 of the second period on the power play on a redirection in front of Rinne. Tobias Enstrom took the original slap shot from the point that Stafford was able to redirect for his second goal of the game and his 14th of the season. Hellebuyck made 17 saves in the first period to keep Winnipeg in a position to take the lead. The Jets felt that withstanding that push in the first period by the Predators was the most important part of the game. The Jets offense struggled to create a high volume of shots but were opportunistic with their chances. They scored two goals in their first six shots to jump out to the lead despite being heavily outshot by the Predators. Chiarot gave the Jets a 3-0 lead at 5:05 of the third period. Chiarot attempted a centering feed to Mark Scheifele that went off of Mattias Ekholm's stick and past Rinne for his first goal. Wilson scored to make it 3-1 at 13:33 of the third period. Roman Josi joined the rush and made a pass that Wilson was able to one-time past Hellebuyck. Nashville has scored two goals or fewer in 14 of its past 23 games. The Predators' record in those games in 1-11-2. Burmistrov scored an empty-net goal with 29.4 seconds remaining to give the Jets a 4-1 lead.

Drew Stafford: "It was a great play by [Myers] just driving it wide. Just go to the net with your stick on the ice, and I was able to sneak one by. I was just trying to get good wood on it. I wasn't really putting it anywhere specific."
"It was a great shot by [Enstrom]. I was just able to get my stick on it, kind of raking the leaves in front of the net there a little bit. I wasn't exactly screening [Rinne] where I was supposed to be, but I was lucky to get a good stick on it. We'll take it because we've pretty much had goose eggs for a long time on our second unit."
Paul Maurice: "That's five in eight for us on the road and the last four. It's a long flight from Anaheim and a two-hour time change so you're worried about the first 10 minutes more than any other part of the hockey game, and they know it so they come with an awful lot of speed and an awful lot of jump. I almost think it was a benefit to [Hellebuyck] that they shot absolutely everything. There might have been some seam plays and some other plays that never developed, but it was just keep ripping it at the net. He was rested, he was the freshest guy in our lineup and he looked great."
"I thought it was Ben Chiarot's best game of the year. He was fantastic. His jump, [he had] energy in his game."
Blake Wheeler: "We just kind of had a tough time handling the puck and a tough time really doing a whole lot. That's when your goaltender has got to be great when you have a slow start, and he hung in there and gave us a chance. That seemed to kind of suck the life out of them a little bit."
Peter Laviolette: "[Wilson] played terrific. He had lots of opportunities. It was nice to see him cash in. Again, it probably gets frustrating when you get those opportunities and they don't go, so it was nice to see him get one."
Roman Josi: "I don't know, maybe we don't get enough quality chances. I don't know. Everybody has to do a better job. We have to get to the net more. We have to get some dirty goals. We have to get some pucks through from the point. Everyone has to do a better job, and obviously there are a lot of things we have to do better."