The Vancouver Canucks seem to have no qualms right now about riding the hot goaltending of Roberto Luongo, but you have to wonder whether they’ll come to regret that decision in the near future.
Tag Archive: nhl update
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Patrick Kane scored two goals, including the tiebreaking goal after a fight midway through the second period, and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks 5-3 on Tuesday night in a matchup of the NHL’s top two teams.
Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw and Marcus Kruger also scored for the Blackhawks, who overcame a 2-0 deficit to remain the only team in the NHL yet to lose a game in regulation this season. Corey Crawford made 30 saves.
xmlns:apnm=”http://ap.org/schemas/03/2005/apnm” xmlns:o=”http://w3.org/ns/odrl/2/”>Joe Pavelski, Tommy Wingels and Michal Handzus scored for the Sharks, who have lost three straight games following a franchise-record seven-game winning streak to open the season. Antti Niemi made 26 saves.
The biggest difference for the Sharks during this recent slide has been the power play. San Jose failed to convert on all three chances against Chicago and has one power-play goal in its last 21 opportunities after scoring 12 power-play goals in the first five games.
The most painful came early in the third period with a chance to tie the game when Niemi was called for delay of game just 11 seconds after Nick Leddy was sent off for holding.
Penalty killing has been a strength this season for the Blackhawks, who have allowed two goals in 39 short-handed chances.
Kane added an empty-net goal for the final margin.
The game changed midway through the second period after Andrew Desjardins flattened former Shark Jamal Mayers with a hard hit that drew the ire of Chicago’s Duncan Keith, who started a fight with Desjardins.
Desjardins was given ejected for a hit to the head although replays appeared to show the contact was with the shoulder. So instead of a four-minute power play for San Jose, there were four minutes of 4-on-4 play followed by a one-minute power play for Chicago.
That proved critical when Jonathan Toews picked Douglas Murray’s pocket near the net during the 4-on-4 and fed Kane for the go-ahead goal that gave the Blackhawks a 4-3 lead heading into the third.
Both teams came into the game playing tight defense and struggling to score in recent games. That all changed in a wide-open first period that featured three goals for each team, including the first of the season for four players.
San Jose got out to quick a 2-0 lead on goals by Pavelski and Wingels before a dizzying 89-second stretch that featured four goals, including three by Chicago. The Blackhawks had scored three goals in a stretch of more than 198 minutes of game action before Saad started this goal frenzy by slamming a pass from Brent Seabrook at the side of the net 10:08 into the first for his first goal of the season.
Handzus answered with his first 39 seconds later when he beat Crawford to the short side off a pass in transition from Wingels. But there was no time to celebrate that as the Blackhawks took 8 seconds off the ensuing faceoff to get the goal from Shaw off a pass from behind the net from Bryan Bickell.
Kruger capped the spree at the 11:37 mark when Justin Braun’s clearing attempt hit Wingels’ skate and went right to Kruger, who knocked in his first goal of the season.
NOTES: The Sharks have killed 31 consecutive penalties over the past seven games. … San Jose F James Sheppard assisted on Wingels’ goal for his first NHL point since getting an assist March, 26, 2010, for Minnesota. … Sharks D Dan Boyle returned to the lineup after missing Monday’s game in Anaheim with an illness. … Chicago C Dave Bolland returned after missing one game after being slashed in the ankle.
OTTAWA (AP) — The first time this season Ottawa Senators goalie Craig Anderson allowed more than two goals in a game his teammates bailed him out.
Chris Neil scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal in the second period and Anderson made 20 saves as Ottawa hung on for a 4-3 victory against the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.
Erik Karlsson, Chris Phillips and Daniel Alfredsson scored for Ottawa, and Peter Regin picked up his first points of the season with two assists.
The win snapped a two-game Senators’ losing streak.
“It was a great effort by everybody and everyone was chipping in and doing their job and they got rewarded for it,” Anderson said after collecting his league-tying sixth victory in his ninth game of the season.
“Overall I think this could have been a 4-1 game but it was unfortunate that Buffalo got some lucky bounces and they ended up in the back of the net.”
Tyler Ennis, Jordan Leopold and Jason Pominville scored for Buffalo. Jhonas Enroth made the start in place of Ryan Miller and is still searching for his first win in more than a calendar year. He finished with 20 saves for the Sabres, who have dropped three straight.
“We need better goaltending. There’s no secret to that,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said following his team’s third straight loss and seventh in their past eight games.
“I think (Enroth) will admit that he has to have a couple of those. Now you have to look to bounce back. I tried to let him bounce back in the game and I thought the team answered the bell.
“Right now we’ve got to worry about winning a game, whatever that takes.”
Buffalo’s Thomas Vanek leads the NHL in scoring with 19 points but he was held off the score sheet for the first time in nine games.
Pominville cut Ottawa’s lead to 4-3 at 13:55 of a third period that had four total shots up to that points. The Sabres pressed furiously in the dying moments but were unable to put a fourth puck past Anderson.
Buffalo fell behind 4-1 at the 8:12 mark of the second period after Neil’s one-timer beat Enroth, but quickly got that goal back with Leopold redirecting a puck past Anderson from the side of the goal.
The goal was the first that Anderson has given up after the first period all season.
“We battled back and gave ourselves a chance. We’ve just got to bear down and play a complete game,” Pominville said. “Our first period wasn’t good enough.”
The Senators jumped out to a 3-1 after the first period. Karlsson opened the scoring at 8:17, just 27 seconds into the game’s first power play when his point shot eluded Enroth.
The lead was very short lived though, as Ennis collected a rebound and put a backhand off the far post and in behind Anderson just 21 seconds later.
But Phillips and Alfredsson scored a little more than three minutes apart later in the period to put the home side up 3-1. Phillips took a point shot that dribbled across the goal line after Enroth got a piece of it.
Alfredsson then took a snapshot from the slot off a feed from Mika Zibanejad that beat Enroth cleanly.
“Once it got to 4-3 I thought we did a really good job of keeping them on the outside and doing the right things defensively and holding on to the puck offensively. That was nice to see,” Alfredsson said.
Ottawa finished the night 1-for-2 on the power play, while Buffalo was scoreless on four chances.
Notes: Christian Ehrhoff, Matt Ellis and Andrej Sekera were the scratches for the Sabres while Kaspars Daugavins and Sergei Gonchar sat out for the Senators. … Four players in Tuesday’s game were all selected in the first round of the 2008 NHL draft in Ottawa. Cody Hodgson was taken 10th overall, Tyler Myers (12th), Erik Karlsson (15th) and Tyler Ennis (26th).
(Sports Network) – The Nashville Predators have reached the light at the end of the tunnel that is a franchise record-tying seven-game road trip. They hope their second trip to St. Louis on this swing goes better than the first as they battle the Blues on Tuesday night.
The Predators have not played a home game since Jan. 21, their second straight shootout decision in Nashville to begin the season. They lost on that day to St. Louis 4-3, two days after opening the campaign with a win over Columbus.
Nashville’s road trip got off to a winning start in Minnesota, but a 3-0 loss at St. Louis on Jan. 24 started a three-game losing streak. The Preds ended that skid with a shootout win over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday and made it two wins in a row in the breakaway format with a 2-1 triumph over the previously unbeaten San Jose Sharks on Saturday.
Craig Smith scored the only shootout goal, slipping in a backhander during the second round. Pekka Rinne then sealed the win by turning aside San Jose’s Joe Pavelski.
Rinne made 26 saves in Nashville’s fifth shootout game of the season. It had lost each of the first three in a format that figured to be a strength for the Preds given Rinne’s ability.
“I’m finally making some saves in the shootout,” Rinne told NHL.com. “It’s been a challenge for us but already we’re on our fifth shootout. That’s quite a bit since we’ve played eight games. It was a big win for us. Smitty’s goal in the shootout was nice, and this time I was able to make the saves we needed to get the win.”
Sergei Kostitsyn scored in regulation for the Predators, who are 3-2-1 on the swing and will next play seven of nine at home.
First Nashville will try to snap its four-game slide to the Blues and the earlier loss on this road trip was their second straight in St. Louis.
Rinne made 21 saves in the loss, while Jaroslav Halak turned aside all 13 shots he faced in the shutout, giving the Blues their seventh victory in their last 11 versus the Preds overall.
Vladimir Tarasenko was one of three goal scorers for the Blues and he was named the NHL’s top rookie for the month of January after tallying five goals and nine points in seven games. Two of his goals have come versus the Predators and he brings a five-game point streak (2 goals, 3 assists) into Tuesday’s meeting.
Patrik Berglund also had points in five straight as he was one of three goal- scorers in Friday’s 5-3 setback to the Detroit Red Wings. He has four goals and two assists over his run.
Kevin Shattenkirk and Matt D’Agostini also scored versus the Red Wings as the Blues rallied back from a 2-0 first-period deficit before having a four-game winning streak snapped with just their second loss of the season.
“We definitely did a good job coming back. From there it was anybody’s game,” Shattenkirk said.
The loss did come with some controversy as the Red Wings scored the go-ahead goal with David Backes in the box due to a match penalty for a hit to the head on Detroit’s Kent Huskins. However, replays showed that Backes did not make contact with Huskins’ head and the NHL rescinded the match penalty on Saturday.
Brian Elliott is slated to start at least the next two games in net for the Blues after Halak was placed on injured reserve on Sunday. Halak suffered a strained groin versus the Red Wings and yielded two goals on 11 shots before exiting late in the first period. Elliott stopped 17-of-19 shots faced in relief.
Goaltender Jake Allen was recalled from Peoria of the AHL to serve as the backup, though Halak is expected to be back by the weekend.
The Blues begin a four-game homestand on Tuesday and have won all three of their games in St. Louis this season.
The Sports Network
Saku Koivu scored the tying goal early in the third period, defenseman Sheldon Souray netted the winner with 6:39 left, and rookie Viktor Fasth made 25 saves as the Anaheim Ducks handed the San Jose Sharks their first regulation loss of the season, 2-1 on Monday night.
