For a rundown of Crosby pushing his scoring streak to 25 games and the Penguins pounding the Thrashers 6-3, click here. We also discussed the Blues’ 3-1 defeat of the Blackhawks and Chicago’s far bigger loss in the form of Jonathan Toews’ injury in this post.
Now let’s take a look at the night’s seven other contests.
The Penguins might be the hotter team going into the Winter Classic, but Washington is starting to heat up a bit themselves after recovering from that awful 12-game losing streak. I guess it’s a good thing that 24/7 was a month-long project instead of a one-shot operation, right?
Semyon Varlamov starred in this one, with a 25-save shutout, while Mike Green, Jay Beagle and Alex Ovechkin scored their goals.
I’ve said this a couple times already, but if any team outside of the East’s top eight could creep back into playoff contention, it might be the Hurricanes. They somewhat resemble the Blue Jackets in that their young goalie (Cam Ward, 43 saves) and Eric Staal (two goals) occasionally come through to carry them to victory.
(For the record, I would take Ward/Staal over Rick Nash and Steve Mason, mainly because of the disparity in net.)
Steven Stamkos is the reason Tampa Bay won quite a few games this season, but his boarding penalty late in tonight’s game cost them a point or two. (To be fair, Stamkos helped them stay in the game in the first place, with a goal and an assist tonight.) The ageless wonder Mark Recchi scored a power play game-winner with 20 seconds left to beat the Lightning in a competitive contest.
Two facets of the Stars’ team powered Dallas to first place in the Pacific at this point: their great Brad Richards-Loui Eriksson-James Neal first line and the surprisingly healthy Kari Lehtonen and his unexpectedly healthy backup Andrew Raycroft. Raycroft made 44 shots in this one while Dallas came back from an early 2-1 deficit in the third to win yet again.
Ryan Miller made 29 saves and Mike Weber had a great two goal, one assist game to help Buffalo have a much better day than yesterday. Emerson Etem took back his mean comments about the city (kind of) and they won against the Oilers after losing to Calgary on Monday. They’ll take it.
The Ducks were ruthless with Ilya Bryzgalov in his first game since December 15th, scoring three goals on nine shots in the third period. Meanwhile Jonas Hiller stole the spotlight with a 31-save performance. Nothing will come easily for anyone in this division, it seems.
Earlier today, I wrote that Ryan Kesler would fit right in as a center in Philadelphia in some alternate hockey universe. He looked awfully good as a Canuck tonight, scoring two goals and one assist as Vancouver absolutely dominated Philly. Henrik Sedin earned three assists and Roberto Luongo made 35 saves to dominate this game between two possible Cup contenders.