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The Buzzer: Nolan Patrick Kane

pkanenpatrick

Three Stars

1. Nolan Patrick

Nolan Patrick joins Patrick Kane (free commenter handle: Nolan Patrick Kane?) as the two skaters who generated four points on Monday. The struggling sophomore gets the nod for two reasons 1) it allows this to be a joint award with James van Riemsdyk, one of two players who generated a hat trick with the help of an empty-netter, and 2) Patrick’s Flyers won, while Kane’s Blackhawks somehow lost.

Patrick, 20, scored two goals and two assists, generating a +4 rating. He only needed two shots on goal, so he really had the touch on Monday.

No, like, he really had the touch.

JVR is heating up after what’s been a very tough half-season returning to the Flyers. This hat trick extends his multi-point streak to three games, where he’s generated five goals and two assists for seven points. Patrick and JVR are two players the Flyers expected a lot more from in 2018-19, so if both can turn things around heading into 2019-20, it would be a real moral boost for management (especially since it’s tough to imagine the team trading either forward away at or before the deadline).

2. Patrick Kane

Like Patrick, Kane generated two goals and two assists on Monday. Even in defeat, the Blackhawks would have been silly to expect anything more from Kane, who fired nine SOG and had a +2 rating.

Kane has only failed to score a point in one game since Dec. 14, and that was the 2019 Winter Classic (so you can try to manufacture and “indoor point streak” if you’re feeling strange). During this current actual point streak, 88 has five goals and nine assists for 14 points in six contests. He’s now at a whopping 64 points in 47 games in 2018-19.

3. Carl Soderberg

Two players generated hat tricks of two goals plus an empty-netter on Monday: JVR and Soderberg. Soderberg’s hat trick included the game-winning goal, giving him a slight advantage.

The Swede’s shorthanded goal was an impressive showing of willpower. He finished the night with a +2 rating and five SOG.

Check out his hat trick as a part of these highlights, which also includes Mikko Rantanen making everyone look bad, as he’s wont to do.

Other Highlights of the Night

Pretty nifty combination of hand-eye coordination from Jeff Petry on Montreal’s OT GWG:

That game also included a hefty fight, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Maybe a rare goal where Connor McDavid doesn’t “make it look easy,” ... although, he kinda sorta still does make it easy, doesn’t he? Either way, you can’t really blame him for smiling:

Factoids


  • With his 640th career regular-season goal, Alex Ovechkin is now tied with Dave Andreychuk for 14th all-time in NHL history. That also marked his 238th power-play goal, which puts him ahead of Brendan Shanahan for sixth all-time in that category.

By the way, Andreychuk leads the power-play goal category all-time with 274. Meanwhile, Shanahan ranks 13th in NHL history with 656 goals. Nice symmetry there.

Scores

COL 6 - TOR 3
NJD 8 - CHI 5
PHI 7 - MIN 4
STL 4 - WSH 1
MTL 3 - BOS 2 (OT)
EDM 7 - BUF 2

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.