Anaheim @ Phoenix 4-2 - 11/23

With eight players now out of the lineup, Anaheim Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau knows he is asking the remaining healthy bodies on the bench to dig deep these days. But there seems to be no shortage of Ducks eager to grab a shovel. Dustin Penner, Corey Perry and Sami Vatanen broke open a 1-1 game with three goals in a span of 8:43 in the second period and the Ducks beat the Phoenix Coyotes 4-2 Saturday night despite being outshot 44-26.

"We have a lot of depth," said Anaheim captain Ryan Getzlaf, who assisted on Perry's goal to extend his points streak to five games. "We had to play so many guys so many games last year and they played really well. Now we've had numerous guys go down here again and guys keep stepping in and filling those roles, and we have great goaltending."

Penner scored two goals and goalie Jonas Hiller made 42 saves to give the Ducks their second win in as many nights. Unlike the 1-0 overtime home win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday, there was plenty of offense on display against the Coyotes. The Ducks, who lost defenseman Luca Sbisa for 6-8 weeks with a tendon tear in his right hand and goalie Viktor Fasth for 3-4 weeks with a lower-body injury on Friday, lost defenseman Bryan Allen to a lower-body injury in the second period. Right wing Teemu Selanne sat out the second of back-to-back games, adding to a laundry list of Ducks who remain on the sidelines.

"Players are making great sacrifices," Boudreau said. "You can see it in the blocked shots and the effort they are giving. The perseverance comes with great character and we've got a lot of really good character guys on this team that don't like to lose, even games when you should."

Phoenix has lost nine times (regulation and overtime) this season, and three of those losses have come against the Ducks, who beat the Coyotes 3-2 in a shootout on Oct. 18 and again 5-2 on Nov. 6, both at Honda Center. Phoenix was 3-0-2 since the second loss. The Coyotes had a season-high 44 shots in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday and had 44 more Saturday, but lost both games. Hiller backed up his 31-save shutout against Tampa Bay with another strong effort, playing especially well during a 15-save first period. Mike Ribeiro and Shane Doan scored for the Coyotes, who lost in regulation at Jobing.com Arena for the first time this season (9-1-2). The Ducks are the only team in the League without a home regulation loss (9-0-2). Doan added an assist, extending his point streak to eight games.

"We had chances we didn't bury and when we let that team hang around, they are going to find ways to score goals," Doan said. "Give them credit … they've got some guys that can make plays, and they did."

Coyotes goalie Mike Smith made 18 saves, including one on a penalty shot by Anaheim's Emerson Etem in the second period, before being replaced by Thomas Greiss for the third. Turnovers by defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson led to both of Anaheim's even-strength goals. Phoenix not only lost the game, it lost its leading scorer. Martin Hanzal, who had produced 19 points in the first 22 games, left the game in the first period with a lower-body injury.

"I've always said Marty is our most important forward," Doan said. "He makes everything go for us, he gives us depth and he's a big body in the middle that's so good in front of the net."

The Ducks, who came into the game with three road power-play goals in 46 chances, scored on two of four chances Saturday. The first one helped turn around a slow start. The Coyotes outshot the Ducks 8-0 in the first five minutes. Keith Yandle hit the crossbar early in the first period and Radim Vrbata caught a post later, but Phoenix came up empty on three power-play chances, while the Ducks made the most of their opportunity. With Ribeiro in the penalty box for hooking, Penner got away from Phoenix forward Jeff Halpern, took a pass from Cam Fowler and put a wrist shot over Smith at 11:11 of the opening period.

"We started well, but we needed to get something out of it. We get four or five pretty good opportunities and don't score, then they get one and it's in the net," Phoenix coach Dave Tippett said. "We kept making mistakes and they got further ahead."

After Smith stoned Etem on the penalty shot 4:55 into the second period, Ribero batted the rebound of a Derek Morris shot out of midair and past Hiller at 7:27 for his seventh goal. But Anaheim answered quickly and dominated the rest of the period. Penner got his second of the night at 8:03, going in 2-on-1 with Getzlaf and beating Smith inside the right circle. Perry made it 3-1 at 11:01 He took a pass from Getzlaf, chipped the puck past Coyotes forward Antoine Vermette, cut to the middle of the ice around a helpless Michael Stone and whistled a wrist shot high to the glove side for his 13th goal.

"That’s why he makes $8.5 million," Boudreau said with a smile.

Vatanen capped the run at 16:43 via the power play, taking a feed from Mathieu Perreault in the slot and scoring to give the Ducks a three-goal lead. It was the 13th goal allowed by the Phoenix penalty kill in the past 11 games.

"Penner's second goal was bigger than the first," Boudreau said. "I'm sure they are sitting there saying, 'We've outplayed them pretty badly in the first, we just tied it and all of a sudden they score again. What's going on?' And then before they had time to think, Corey scored and we added the other power-play goal."

Doan made it 4-2 at 4:20 of the third, deflecting an Ekman-Larsson shot past Hiller for his 32nd goal and 70th point in 95 career games against Anaheim.

Chicago @ Vancouver 2-1 - 11/23

The Chicago Blackhawks know better than most how quickly a game can turn. Chicago shocked the Boston Bruins and won the Stanley Cup in June by scoring two goals in 17 seconds. The NHL's leading offense needed all of nine seconds to beat the struggling Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. Andrew Shaw tied the game on a redirection 4:40 into the third period, and Marcus Kruger put the Blackhawks ahead on a 2-on-1 break nine seconds later en route to a 2-1 victory against the Canucks at Rogers Arena.

"It can turn around pretty quick if we get some chances," said Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford, who secured the win with 14 of his 36 saves in the third period. "Especially the opportunities we got. They were A-plus chances, and usually we bury those."

Vancouver led on Ryan Kesler's 5-on-3 goal late in the first period and had just killed off a Chicago power play that included Patrick Sharp hitting both posts and the crossbar when Shaw tipped Patrick Kane's backhand shot between the legs of Roberto Luongo from the top of the crease. A miscue on the ensuing faceoff led to a 2-on-1 and Kruger kept the puck, firing it through a stunned Luongo.

"Obviously the past year we have had a lot of goals scored back-to-back quickly," Shaw said. "We stuck to it all game and it just took nine seconds, I guess."

Crawford made several great stops after taking the lead, and Kane extended his point streak to 10 games. The Blackhawks won for the seventh time in nine games despite missing top-line forward Marian Hossa, who returned to Chicago earlier in the day to attend to a family matter.

"We haven't played a low-scoring, tight game like that in a couple of weeks, but I've said before we are never out of a game," Crawford said. "We can all score goals so everyone in this room was confident we would get one, and then that was a good break to get that 2-on-1 and a nice goal by (Kruger) to get the winner there."

It didn't quite compare to the 17-second, Cup-clinching outburst, though. But it was a positive sign for a Chicago team that struggled to defend at times lately, giving up seven goals in a loss to the Nashville Predators on Nov. 16 and five in a loss to the Colorado Avalanche four days ago. Crawford was pulled from both games, but was perfect after Kesler's goal and made a couple of great saves late to preserve the lead. He threw out the left pad to deny Dale Weise from the top of the crease midway through, and gloved Brad Richardson's dangerous shot with five minutes left.

"I love the way he played," Quenneville said. "It was nice to see him really strong in the net. They had a lot of bodies and shots and traffic when the game was on the line and I liked his response."

In a battle of Canadian Olympic hopefuls, and the NHL's two busiest goaltenders, Luongo and Crawford were both good. Luongo, starting on consecutive nights for the first time in two years after making 14 saves in a 6-2 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday, finished with 27 saves. But he was upset Kruger's shot from the faceoff dot went past him.

"I've got to come up on a save on that one," Luongo said.

The win against Columbus is Vancouver's lone victory in the past six games (1-4-2), and the only time the offense has broken out. The Canucks have scored seven goals in the six losses. Their only one against Chicago came courtesy of a two-man advantage.

"We have to put pucks away," said captain Henrik Sedin, who had his stick checked while facing an empty net on a rebound attempt in the third period. "It can't just be one game and then you're off again."

It's the 10th time in 25 games Vancouver has scored one goal. The Canucks are 12-0-1 when scoring three or more, but 0-9-3 when scoring two or fewer. For all the focus on the missing offense, Luongo said the Canucks need to find ways to win those low-scoring games.

"We have to learn how to win some games 1-0, 2-1," he said. "That's the way the League is right now. We can't just focus on the offense."

Ironically, Chicago captain Jonathan Toews was saying the same thing in the Blackhawks' dressing room.

"We've got a lot of offensive talent, but we have to remind ourselves when we play that team that we have to smarten up defensively," Toews said. "(Crawford) was huge for us."

He had little chance on Kesler's goal. With Brandon Saad already off for slashing, Shaw was called for interference on a shorthanded rush when he bumped Henrik Sedin, who was trying to catch up to the potential 2-on-1. Vancouver wasted little time converting its second 5-on-3 opportunity of the season, with Kesler feeding Jason Garrison for a one-timer at the point and then sliding the rebound through the legs of a sliding Crawford to end his seven-game goal drought. It stayed that way until shortly after Chicago's second power play, which produced several great chances, and led to the tying goal 10 seconds after the advantage ended.

"We beat ourselves, and teams like Chicago will capitalize," Canucks coach John Tortorella said. "We kill a penalty, we get our guy on the ice and we throw the puck away [and it] ends up in our net. We run how we forecheck off a faceoff every time, [but] we decide to go off the map and we give up an odd-man rush [and] it's in our net. We played a good hockey game, but we beat ourselves in those few seconds."

Dallas @ St Louis 1-6 - 11/23

Once the St. Louis Blues caught up to the Dallas Stars' speed, they were able to put the game in cruise control Saturday. In the end, the Stars' road winning streak ran into a major speed bump. The Stars came into their game against the Blues winners of six in a row away from home, but one of their new Central Division rivals and top teams in the Western Conference had other ideas. The Blues got goals from six scorers, with T.J. Oshie leading the way with a goal and an assist in a 6-1 victory at Scottrade Center.

"I thought we struggled at the start of the game to catch up to the speed," said Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, who got his 621st career victory to move past Bryan Murray into eighth place on the all-time list. "As much as you talk about the speed of Dallas, I thought we struggled to get up to tempo in the first period. They were on us pretty hard, and I thought as the game wore on, we got more and more up to the tempo of the game and started to counterattack and get some scoring opportunities because of it."

Vladimir Sobotka, Vladimir Tarasenko, David Backes, Derek Roy and Chris Stewart also scored for the Blues, who got two assists from Alex Pietrangelo. Brenden Morrow had an assist against his former club to give him a point against all 30 NHL teams. St. Louis improved to 10-1-2 on home ice, 8-1-1 in their past 10 games overall and 11-2-1 in their past 14.

"We started trading chances there for a little bit, and that's not our game," Oshie said. "We got a hold of it pretty quick and it seemed like they had some trouble with our reloads and our tracking and our forecheck. That's what all our offense came off of. When we can go at them in waves with four lines, not just three but four, I think that's when we're at our best. Tonight, having six different scorers shows that."

Blues goalie Brian Elliott remained unbeaten in regulation, improving to 4-0-1 making 34 saves as St. Louis continued its franchise-best start. The Blues are 16-3-3 and have beaten the Stars in six of the past seven meetings. Elliott, who has a 1.79 goals-against average and .932 save percentage, and Jaroslav Halak have formed one of top duos in the NHL. It's reminiscent of the Jennings Trophy season they had in 2011-12.

"You always want to get in there and fight for the guys and be a part of it," Elliott said. "I think that's what our strength is as a tandem. We can push each other. … I think Jaro's playing well and I want to play well so we can just keep moving this train forward."

Brenden Dillon scored for the Stars and Kari Lehtonen stopped 13 shots before being pulled early in the third period in favor of Dan Ellis. Dallas (11-9-2) dropped its fourth straight in St. Louis.

"I felt I had a bad night," said Lehtonen, who came into the game 8-3-0 with a 1.62 GAA and .946 save percentage against the Blues. "They stayed patient and got a couple of opportunities and scored. There's going to be a bad game at some point and it came tonight. I just have to forget about this one."

Outshot 12-4 in the first period, the Blues scored on half of theirs to take a 2-1 lead. Sobotka's power move around Stars defenseman Sergei Gonchar, and a shove from behind by Dallas forward Jamie Benn, pushed Lehtonen deep into his net, but the puck crossed the goal line 1:39 into the game. It was the 100th career point for Sobotka, which includes 30 goals.

"We're a momentum team," Oshie said. "When nothing's going our way, I think we play really well. When we get off to a good start like that, we seem to feed off it and keep going."

The Stars tied it when Dillon's shot from the middle of the ice inside the blue line bounced past Elliott, who seemed to be screened by Pietrangelo, at 10:53. Tarasenko gave the Blues the lead nine seconds later when he powered his way past Cody Eakin and snapped a shot through Lehtonen. Vladimir Sobotka and Rich Peverley had a fight at 11:27 in the first just moments after the Blues had gone 2-1 up. at 12:09 of the same period Ryan Reaves checked Nichuskin into the Blues bench. Brenden Dillon took exception to it and a second fight ensued to give an explosive start to the game. The Stars entered the Blues' zone with speed in the second period but mishandled the puck; the play turned into a 2-on-1 for Backes and Jaden Schwartz. Backes kept the puck and wristed a shot from the slot past Lehtonen to give the Blues a 3-1 lead at 6:56. It was Backes' 10th goal in 22 games after scoring six in 48 last season. Roy, who played part of last season for the Stars, deflected a Steen shot past Lehtonen 50 seconds into the third period for a power-play goal and his sixth point in six games, to give the Blues a 4-1 lead. It was Steen's first point in four games after briefly holding the NHL lead in goals and points last week. Stewart's shot from the left dot, assisted by Morrow, gave the Blues a 5-1 lead 5:39 into the third period and chased Lehtonen. Oshie's eighth point in six games came on a deflection of Pietrangelo's right-point shot past Ellis 11:02 into the third period, making it 6-1. On the heels of a 3-2 shootout victory Thursday against the Boston Bruins, the Blues kept to their winning ways instead of going through a let down.

 

"I guess that's a good learning experience for us after an emotional win coming back trying to play the same way," Pietrangelo said. "I thought we did that tonight. It's a good answer, a good learning lesson obviously."

Pittsburgh @ Montreal 2-3 - 11/23

The Montreal Canadiens withstood a late rally by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the third period and earned a 3-2 victory at Bell Centre on Saturday night to extend their winning streak to three games. Goals by Max Pacioretty, his second of the game, and Tomas Plekanec in the first 3:25 of the third period gave the Canadiens a 3-0 lead. Penguins forward James Neal scored twice to cut the Montreal lead to 3-2. But Carey Price (29 saves) held the fort once again for the Canadiens, stifling the late pressure from the Penguins. The Canadiens weren't about to let their hard work slip away after putting themselves in a position to win.

"We put ourselves in a good position to win the game and you try to work hard down the stretch," defenseman P.K. Subban said. "[Evgeni] Malkin made a great play on that second goal, but with those types of players, those goals are going to happen. You just take them off and keep playing. They're good players that will make good plays. I thought we did a good job of playing smart and managing the puck well, moving it out of our zone and not putting ourselves in a position where we let their skill determine the outcome of the game."

Despite the loss, the Penguins were happy with their effort and the fact they didn't crumble after the two quick goals by the Canadiens put them down 3-0

"We battled hard to get back into it," captain Sidney Crosby said. "But it's a tough game to play when you're fighting [from behind] like that in the third period." Crosby also liked his team's start and credited Price for withstanding the early chances. "We definitely started very well and got some really good chances. He kind of weathered the storm early on and allowed them to stay in the game and get that important first goal. He was solid all the way through."

Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 saves in the loss. Pittsburgh's winning streak ended at three games. Each of Pacioretty's goals came off Penguins turnovers. His first was the result of an Olli Maatta mistake; the rookie defenseman threw a blind pass across the middle while breaking out of the Pittsburgh zone. Pacioretty intercepted the pass, skated across the blue line and ripped a shot past Fleury for a 1-0 lead 1:53 into the second period. His second goal was a result of another Pittsburgh turnover that Montreal defenseman Raphael Diaz was able to intercept and dish to Pacioretty.

“The coaches are always saying protect the small ice, and we're not stretching ourselves out defensively in the neutral zone," Pacioretty said. "I know on my first goal there we want to protect the lines, I mean the red line and the blue lines, and [Diaz] has gotta steer there, and then obviously I was able to step up and read the pass."

Pacioretty has seven goals, five of them in his past three games. The Canadiens were able to hold Crosby without a point, largely due to the defensive play of Plekanec, who blanketed the NHL's scoring leader throughout the night and dominated in the faceoff circle. Plekanec was 16-for-21 (76 percent), with many of those draws against Crosby. Plekanec appeared to get under Crosby's skin at times.

"Pleky can get under everybody’s skin," Subban said. "He's got that goatee and that little smirk he puts on his face. But he's a good player. Guys don't like it, but he's a good player. Look at this game, and he's probably one of our best players."

Neal's two goals extended his point streak to three games; he has three goals and three assists during that span. Meanwhile, after breaking a 15-game goal drought on Friday, Evgeni Malkin extended his point streak to four games, assisting on both goals. Malkin has a goal and six assists in his past four games, but he paid the price on his second assist. Malkin went crashing into the end boards with 2:55 remaining in regulation and needed help getting back to the bench, but he returned for his next shift and almost tied the game in the final minute on a wraparound that was denied by Price. The Penguins finished the game 1-for-3 on the power play; the Canadiens went 0-for-3 with the man advantage. Penguins forward Tanner Glass left the game after the second period and did not return. Coach Dan Bylsma said Glass has an upper-body injury and will be evaluated Sunday. Prior to the game, Bylsma announced that forward Beau Bennett, who was injured in the second period of a 4-3 win against the New York Islanders on Friday, could be out for a while.

"Longer than days now right now," Bylsma said. "Right now longer than that."

Matt D’Agostini replaced Bennett in the lineup and skated on a line with Brandon Sutter and rookie Brian Gibbons. For the Canadiens, Ryan White remained in the lineup for a second straight game, filling in for injured forward Rene Bourque (upper body). On defense, Francis Bouillon was back in and Douglas Murray was a healthy scratch.

Results - Sat, Nov 23, 2013

Carolina @ Boston 2-3 OT - David Krejci scored 1:28 into overtime after Jarome Iginla led the rush into the Hurricanes zone, and the Bruins improved to 6-0-2 in their past eight games at TD Garden with a 3-2 win Saturday afternoon. Iginla drew two defensemen to him as he drove down the right wing, and Carolina goaltender Cam Ward moved out toward his left in anticipation of a shot. Instead, Iginla passed to Krejci in the slot. The Boston center dangled until Ward went down, then roofed the game-winning shot. Prior to the overtime goal, Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk took possession of the puck in the Boston zone after forward Carl Soderberg and Hurricanes center Jordan Staal fell in the corner. Carolina coach Kirk Muller was not pleased Soderberg wasn't called for a penalty. The first period didn't start well for Carolina defenseman Andrej Sekera. He blocked a Shawn Thornton slap shot and had to be helped off the ice at 3:12. He wasn't gone long, however, and returned in time to make sure the Hurricanes' first power play was a success. With Soderberg off for hooking, Sekera took a wrist shot from the blue line that went past no fewer than four bodies and eluded Chad Johnson at 5:53 for a 1-0 Carolina lead. It was the Hurricanes' first power-play goal in four games after they went 0-for-12 in their prior three. Chara swept a rebound of a Lucic shot into the back of the net at 14:49 to tie the game 1-1. The Bruins went to the first intermission with a 14-6 advantage in shots on goal. Carolina went 22:43 without a shot on goal from near the midpoint of the first period until well into the second. The Bruins outshot Carolina 12-4 in the second period and held a 26-10 advantage through 40 minutes. Johnson held up his end of the bargain in Boston's net, and Reilly Smith gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead with a goal at 13:31. Soderberg's pass from between the hash marks to the front of the net hit the skate of Hurricanes defenseman Tim Gleason and deflected to Smith, who cut across the slot and beat Ward with a backhander to the short side. Even when killing penalties, the Hurricanes were working hard to score the equalizer. During one penalty kill, Johnson stopped an Eric Staal shot on a 2-on-1. Later in the period, Patrick Dwyer scored shorthanded on a breakaway after he stole an errant Boston pass in the Carolina end. Dwyer roofed a shot past Johnson to tie the score 2-2 with 8:50 remaining in regulation.

Minnesota @ Winnipeg 3-2 SO - The Minnesota Wild survived an injury to goaltender Josh Harding' minutes before the opening faceoff of their game against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday afternoon, then overcame a third-period deficit to win 3-2 in a shootout. Harding missed his scheduled start after sustaining a lower-body injury during warm-ups. The injury forced Niklas Backstrom into emergency duty. Backstrom, activated from injured reserve before the game, made 37 saves, and Charlie Coyle won it with a goal in the fourth round of the tiebreaker. Backstrom's play set up a late comeback for the Wild. Shorthanded and trailing 2-1 late in the third period, Zach Parise tied the score with 4:55 left in the third period when captain Mikko Koivu reached him with a pass on a 3-on-2 rush into the Winnipeg zone. Parise outmaneuvered Jets forward Bryan Little before one-timing Koivu's pass behind goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. After Koivu and Little scored in the shootout, Coyle won it by beating Pavelec in the fourth round. The Wild (15-5-4), who had played eight of their past 10 games against Eastern Conference opponents, began a run of five straight games facing Western Conference foes. With 34 points in their first 24 games, the Wild are off to the best start in franchise history and have won six of their past seven games and nine of their past 11. The Jets (10-11-4), on an 0-2-2 slide, received goals from third-liners Michael Frolik and Matt Halischuk, and Pavelec stopped 33 shots. Nino Niederreiter's goal for Minnesota early in the third period made it 1-1 before Halischuk put Winnipeg ahead 2:14 later. The Jets' five shorthanded goals against are the most in the League, and their 11 power-play goals are the third-fewest. The Wild were also without forward Mikael Granlund (upper body), whom the Wild learned earlier in the day would not be available. Granlund's absence forced the Wild to dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Yeo did not provide an update on Harding's health after the game. His 1.48 goals-against average ranks second in the NHL and he is tied for second in the League with 13 wins and two shutouts. His save percentage (.939) is among the top 10. Backstrom played his first game since a collision with the Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri on Nov. 13. Backstrom, who practiced once since the injury, had a 1-1-2 record in seven games, a 3.30 GAA and an .874 save percentage. Harding's injury caused the Wild to play the first period without a backup goaltender until Darcy Kuemper arrived at MTS Centre. The Wild managed to retrieve Kuemper, who was sitting on a plane at Winnipeg International Airport after Minnesota removed him from the roster and sent him to the Iowa Wild, the team's American Hockey League affiliate, a few hours before the game. Kuemper was added to the lineup as an emergency exemption. Winnipeg had four shots on Backstrom in the opening 10 minutes before becoming more active in the Minnesota zone in the latter half of the first period. The hosts finished the first period with a 14-3 shots advantage. The Jets' third line cracked Backstrom 13:07 into the second period. Halischuk drove the Minnesota net off the right side and let go a rising shot that Backstrom failed to control. Frolik crashed the net and shoved the rebound under Backstrom. The goalie held firm against the Jets over the first two periods and provided the Wild with time to settle down and find their game. The banged-up Winnipeg blue line received some relief with Mark Stuart's return after he missed 12 of the past 16 games with a hip injury, including a 10-game absence that dated to Oct. 27.

Washington @ Toronto 1-2 SO - James Reimer's heroics got the Maple Leafs into the tiebreaker, and James van Riemsdyk and Joffrey Lupul scored in the tiebreaker to give Toronto a 2-1 win against the Washington Capitals at Air Canada Centre on Saturday night. Lupul started the fourth round of the shootout by beating Braden Holtby with a wrist shot. Troy Brouwer had a chance to extend the tiebreaker but fired his wrister over the net. Eric Fehr scored in the first round to give Washington the lead, but van Riemsdyk scored on a backhander in the second round to get the Maple Leafs even. David Clarkson scored midway through the second period for Toronto. Alex Ovechkin tied the game and became the first NHL player to reach the 20-goal mark this season when he beat Reimer with 4:10 left in regulation. Clarkson opened the scoring at 10:08 of the second when he deflected a power-play point shot from Jake Gardiner past Holtby for his second goal of the season. The goal was reviewed to see if the puck was deflected into the net with a high stick, but video replay was inconclusive and the goal was allowed to stand. With eight seconds left in the second period, Capitals forward Mikhail Grabovski was injured when he was cut in the face by Clarkson's skate blade. Grabovski was bleeding, but headed off the ice under his own power and returned six minutes into the third. It was Grabovski's first game against the Maple Leafs since being bought out by Toronto during the summer.

Ottawa @ Detroit 4-2 - The Senators broke a 2-2 tie when, on their 5-on-3, Erik Karlsson had the puck between the circles and slid a pass to Bobby Ryan low to his left. Ryan fired into an open side at 3:51. Clarke MacArthur added some insurance when he scored another power-play goal with 4:02 remaining. Detroit nearly had another 5-on-3 goal and a 3-3 tie with 8:46 left in the third period, but it was correctly ruled on the ice and confirmed by video that Johan Franzen batted the puck into the net with his hand. The Red Wings tied the game 2-2 on their 5-on-3 goal 1:08 into the third period. Pavel Datsyuk tried to send a pass across the goalmouth; Senators defenseman Jared Cowen went to the ice to block it, but the puck went off his back leg and through goalie Robin Lehner. Ottawa took a 2-1 lead with goals 1:11 apart in the first period. The first came from MacArthur, who after fanning on his first attempt was able to lift his second over goalie Jimmy Howard at 14:33. MacArthur had carried the puck into the zone and sent it behind the net to Ryan, whose pass to the front came off the skate of Red Wings defenseman Kyle Quincey and back to Ryan, who pushed it to MacArthur. Three fortunate bounces for Ottawa ended in a goal credited to Chris Neil at 15:44. Senators forward Cory Conacher stole the puck from Helm in the Detroit zone. Conacher passed to Neil, whose shot hit Helm then bounced off each leg of Red Wings defenseman Brendan Smith into the net. Helm started the scoring at 13:23 of the first. He carried the puck through the neutral zone all the way behind the Ottawa goal, then passed to Tomas Tatar and headed to the front of the net, where he tipped Tatar's wrist shot past Lehner.

NY Islanders @ Philadelphia 2-5 - After a scoreless first period, the Flyers got goals from Read, Simmonds and Giroux in the first 3:48 of the second, but Eric Boulton's goal 2:39 into the third made it a one-goal game. Voracek played a big role in the Flyers snatching the momentum and the victory. He won a puck battle deep in the Islanders' zone and put a sharp-angled shot on net that goalie Anders Nilsson stopped, but the rebound went into the slot to Brayden Schenn, who one-timed it past Nilsson at 12:21 to make it a 4-2 game. Read opened the scoring 46 seconds into the period on a play that started when the Islanders turned over the puck deep in their zone. Sean Couturier had a chance from the slot that Islanders goalie Kevin Poulin lunged to get his blocker on. The rebound went to Read in the left circle and he fired it past Poulin for his seventh of the season. Simmonds scored his fourth of the season 59 seconds later. Vincent Lecavalier carried the puck through the center of the ice and dished it to Simmonds in the right circle. Lecavalier continued to the net, with Islanders defenseman Travis Hamonic following him and creating enough of a screen for Simmonds to get a shot past Poulin to make it 2-0. The Flyers then took advantage of an offensive-zone penalty against Thomas Vanek by scoring a power-play goal against the NHL's 30th-ranked penalty-killing unit. Poulin got a piece of Voracek's shot from a sharp angle on right side. Simmonds pounced on the rebound and tried backhanding a pass through the slot to Scott Hartnell, but the puck went past him to Giroux, and the Flyers captain rifled a shot past Poulin for his third of the season at 3:48. The Islanders cut into the Flyers lead on Tavares' 10th goal of the season. Matt Donovan had the puck deep in his zone and sent a long pass up the left side of the ice to Vanek, catching the Flyers on a line change. Vanek threw a pretty saucer pass to a cutting Tavares, who had a step on Brayden Schenn and tipped the pass behind Mason at 14:04. New York made it a one-goal game early in the third on Boulton's first goal in 72 games. Casey Cizikas beat Adam Hall on a faceoff in the left circle in the Philadelphia end, pushing the puck between Hall's skates to Boulton at the right post. He lifted a shot over Mason for his first goal since April 7, 2011. Read's empty-net goal with 48.6 seconds left closed the scoring and sends the Flyers off on a two-game road trip to Florida in a positive frame of mind.

NY Rangers @ Nashville 2-0 - New York came the closest to scoring during its first power play. With Seth Jones off for high-sticking Dominic Moore at 5:31, Mats Zuccarello's backhander trickled through Mazanec's pads, but Roman Josi cleared the puck out of the crease before it could cross the goal line. Mazanec also made a fine stop midway through the period on Benoit Pouliot's backhander from the right circle after Pouliot split the defense. New York began to dominate play and opened the scoring at 13:13 on a perfect deflection by McDonagh. Zuccarello's pass from the right boards found defenseman Dan Girardi for a straightaway slap shot from just inside the blue line. McDonagh, his defense partner, went to the slot and deflected the shot between Mazanec's legs for his fifth of the season. Stepan gave the Rangers some breathing room 7:45 into the third period by starting and finishing the play that led to his fifth goal of the season. He stripped Viktor Stalberg of the puck in center ice, fed Zuccarello to trigger a 2-on-1 break, then fired the return feed past a helpless Mazanec.



Colorado @ Los Angeles 1-0 OT - Patrick Roy knows a little something about coming into Los Angeles and winning in overtime, so it resonates loud when he passes out A-plus grades to his team. The first-year Colorado Avalanche coach had his team match the Los Angeles Kings defensively every step Saturday night and come out with a 1-0 win at Staples Center on Jamie McGinn's overtime goal. McGinn one-timed a pass from John Mitchell from the right side on a rush and McGinn's shot went in off a sprawled Jarret Stoll at 2:32. Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov made 19 saves for the shutout in a duel with Ben Scrivens, who made 32 saves and is 4-0-2 in place of injured goalie Jonathan Quick. The Avalanche also improved to 3-0 in overtime road games this season. Roy, of course, famously backstopped the Montreal Canadiens to three straight overtime wins against L.A. in the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. The sequence that led to the game-winning goal started when Anze Kopitar's shot was deflected in traffic, and Mitchell carried the puck up ice on an odd-man rush. Scrivens could not be asked to do much more for L.A., which has held the opposition to two or fewer goals six straight games. He shined on a late third period penalty kill with five saves, notably one on Nathan MacKinnon on a feed from Ryan O'Reilly. Colorado spent most of the second period in L.A.'s zone, but the Kings didn't give it much to work with, and Scrivens took care of the rest. He stopped all 16 shots in the second, with the best chances by Maxime Talbot on the doorstep and by PA Parenteau from the left side. The Kings changed their lines after Kyle Clifford was activated from injured reserve and Matt Frattin was scratched with a lower-body injury. Kings coach Darryl Sutter notably broke up the Dustin Brown-Anze Kopitar duo and had Brown play the right side with Clifford and Stoll. It didn't really provide any jumpstart; L.A. failed to capitalize on its first two power plays. Kopitar broke down the right side, but Varlamov got a piece of the shot late in the second period in which Colorado had a 16-7 shot advantage. The Avalanche won 21 of 34 faceoffs through 40 minutes. The Kings escaped, though, and could have grabbed momentum when John Mitchell took a double-minor high sticking penalty on Willie Mitchell. But L.A. had two shots on goal in the four minutes. L.A. still extended its points streak to nine games (6-0-3). It typically thrives on low-scoring games and won its share of 1-0 contests with Quick, but this might have been a game where it could have used Jeff Carter, who is nearing a return from a foot injury.
 
New Jersey @ San Jose 1-2 - The San Jose Sharks got off to another blistering start Saturday night, building a 2-0 first-period lead against the New Jersey Devils on goals by Scott Hannan and Tyler Kennedy. Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi made 18 saves, allowing only a third-period goal to Patrik Elias. Martin Brodeur made 28 saves for New Jersey and survived a scary incident late in the game when a shot by Brent Burns hit him in the back of his neck. Brodeur made a sprawling save on Burns shot with 1:31 left to play and remained on the ice for several minutes, but he stayed in the game after being examined by a trainer. The Sharks took a 2-0 lead into the third period, but Elias cut that advantage in half at 8:10 by scoring a power-play goal with Jason Demers in the penalty box for hooking former Shark Steve Bernier. With Bernier providing a screen, Elias sent a wrist shot from the right circle past Niemi with one second left on the Devils' only advantage of the night. Andy Greene and Eric Gelinas got the assists. With less than three minutes left, Zajac sent a rocket toward the net, but Niemi made a great pad save. He made a couple more key saves down the stretch. Hannan opened the scoring at 4:25 with his third goal of the season, beating Brodeur with a slap shot from well above the left circle. Burns set the scoring play in motion, delivering a huge hit on Devils defenseman Adam Larsson behind the net and sending the puck to Thornton. The Sharks' captain threaded a cross-ice pass to Hannan, who skated in and, with Tomas Hertl providing a screen, unloaded a shot that beat Brodeur. The Sharks increased their lead to 2-0 on Kennedy's one-timer from the right circle at 14:47. From behind the net, Martin Havlat sent a pass to a wide-open Kennedy, who beat Brodeur to his stick side for his third goal of the season and first since Nov. 5.

NY Islanders @ Pittsburgh 3-4 - 11/22/13

Sidney Crosby's 250th career goal was a game-winner. Crosby scored with 1:16 remaining in regulation to give the Pittsburgh Penguins a 4-3 victory against the New York Islanders on Friday night at Consol Energy Center. Chris Kunitz chased his own dump-in, outbattled Radek Martinek and pushed it to Pascal Dupuis, who sent a pass out to Crosby at the left of Kevin Poulin's crease. Crosby, who leads the League with 30 points, was left alone when two Islanders went to Dupuis and snapped home the milestone goal to put the Penguins ahead to stay.

"It just kind of got put together there," said Crosby, who has 250 goals and 695 points in 493 regular-season games. "It was a good forecheck. [Kunitz] got a hit to separate the guy from the puck and then [Dupuis] found me there at the side of the net. It was kind of a patient third period for both teams. There wasn't much going on from the first two periods, but it's nice to get the win."

After losing four of five games, Pittsburgh has won three consecutive games to stretch its lead atop the Metropolitan Division to five points over the Washington Capitals, which lost 3-2 at home to the Montreal Canadiens on Friday. The Penguins visit Montreal on Saturday. Pittsburgh rookie Jeff Zatkoff stopped 30 shots for his second career victory. Poulin made 30 saves. New York has gone has lost nine of 13 games since its 4-3 win against the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Oct. 25. The Islanders finish a three-game road trip against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.

"Am I happy? No," Poulin said. "I don't think you can ever be happy when you don't win, but tomorrow's another game. We had success the last couple of times we came in here, and we knew what we needed to do to get back in the game."

Evgeni Malkin ended his 15-game goal drought when he extended the Penguins' lead to 3-1 at 6:25 of the second period. James Neal slid the puck into a crowded crease where Malkin buried his fourth goal of the season and first since Oct. 17 at 6:25 of the second period to put Pittsburgh by two. Malkin is second on the Penguins with 24 points, six behind Crosby; he earned 14 assists during the drought.

"He had a breakaway and I wasn't ready," Malkin said of Neal. "At the last second, I shot the puck and it surprised me. Thanks to him for sure. My line did a great job tonight and I had a breakaway in the last five minutes and didn't score, but I'm just excited for the next game."

Thomas Vanek, in his first action since missing five games with an upper body injury, helped erase a pair of two-goal deficits by scoring two of the Islanders' three second-period goals. Prior to Malkin's goal, Kyle Okposo dug the puck out of the corner and backhanded a pass to Vanek between the circles. Vanek wristed a shot past Zatkoff at 1:46 to cut Pittsburgh's lead to 2-1. After Malkin put the Penguins back in front by two, Colin McDonald snapped a shot past Zatkoff's blocker at 11:33, finishing off a 2-on-1 break. Vanek tied it when he whacked home a loose puck after a turnover by Penguins defenseman Paul Martin 1:21 later. Vanek sent a pass through Pittsburgh's crease to John Tavares, who tapped the puck on goal. The puck bounced off Okposo, and Vanek backhanded a shot into the net before Craig Adams or Brooks Orpik could clear it. The Islanders matched the Penguins at 5-on-5 until the coverage mistake that allowed Crosby's goal, but they were beaten badly on special teams. The power play was 0-for-6 and the penalty-killers allowed two goals in four tries.

"It's our job to prepare them to work," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said of he and his staff. "I always judge teams by their work ethic, and our team's tonight was there. We outshot them, we outhit them, we had blocked shots. Our goalie played well enough to give us a chance. Special teams [stunk] and we made a mental error on the last goal."

The Islanders' penalty-killing unit, ranked last in the NHL at 70.4 percent, allowed the Penguins to take a 2-0 lead after one period on back-to-back power-play goals by Kunitz. Malkin fed the puck from the left boards through three Islanders to Crosby, who slid a pass back across the zone and into the crease to set up Kunitz's first goal 4:04 into the game. He scored again 3:51 later when Crosby charged the net during a 3-on-2 and created an open passing lane for Neal to find Kunitz, who slapped a one-timer past Poulin for his 11th of the season.

"The first 30 minutes of the game, they [the Islanders] are going to have the better opportunities 5-on-5," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. "Our power play got the two power-play goals, but they came out clearly and a lot of pucks went to the net. They probably carried the play there."

Hats cascaded from the stands when Kunitz put a third shot past Poulin with 1:10 remaining in the first. But Malkin was called for high sticking and the goal was disallowed.

Results - Fri, Nov 22, 2013

Montreal @ Washington 3-2 - Travis Moen and David Desharnais each snapped a long goal-scoring drought, Daniel Briere scored, and Peter Budaj made 25 saves for Montreal. Moen's wrist shot beat Michal Neuvirth for his first goal of the season and first in 47 games at 8:53. A sloppy pass from Capitals defenseman Alexander Urbom to Mikhail Grabovski led to a turnover just outside Washington's defensive zone. Michael Bournival corralled the loose puck and quickly passed it to Moen. Three minutes later, Desharnais scored his first goal of the season (snapping a 21-game drought dating to last season) when he deflected Josh Gorges' shot from the point past Neuvirth's catching glove. The goal went to review to see if Desharnais' stick was above the crossbar, but there was not sufficient evidence to overturn it. Briere extended Montreal's lead to 3-0 on the power play at 13:40 when he was able to sneak behind Urbom in front of the net. With time running out in the first period and the Capitals on the power play, Ovechkin scored on a tight-angle shot at 19:37. John Carlson's wrist shot missed wide and caromed to Ovechkin along the goal line to Budaj's right. In the third period, Ovechkin, who had taken a roughing penalty two minutes earlier by knocking Brian Gionta to the ice after the two collided in the Capitals' offensive zone, brought Washington within 3-2 at 12:27 when he deflected Carlson's shot in the slot.

Florida @ Calgary 3-4 SO - In the sixth round of the shoot-out, Monahan went in and blasted a wrist shot by Florida goalie Tim Thomas' blocker. Berra then closed the door on Hayes' deke to snap Calgary's six-game losing streak on home ice and give the Flames five of a possible six points over their past three games, each of which went to extra time. Joe Colborne, Sven Baertschi and Blair Jones, in his first game of the season after being recalled Thursday from the Abbotsford Heat of the American Hockey League, scored for Calgary. Hayes, Tom Gilbert and Marcel Goc answered for the Panthers, who return to Florida after going 2-2-1 on a five-game, 6,448-mile road trip through the Western Conference. The Flames needed the shootout to secure two points after blowing a 3-1 lead in the third. Jones gave the Flames a two-goal cushion with his goal at 5:40 of the third period, but Berra gave the Panthers life. Leaving his crease to try to clear a puck before Shawn Matthias could get in alone, Berra rifled it onto Hayes' stick. The Florida right wing put his first of the season into the empty net to bring Florida back to within one at 7:02. Goc tied the game 3-3 off another Flames turnover. After Mike Cammalleri failed to clear the puck out of Calgary's zone, Sean Bergenheim dished to Scott Gomez, who fed Goc for his sixth of the season and first in seven games at 14:01 to set up overtime and the eventual shootout. The Panthers opened the scoring, capitalizing on the Flames’ continued slow-start struggles, which include just one goal on 31 shots in their past five first periods. On a faceoff to the left of Calgary's net, Nick Bjugstad drew the puck back to Gilbert, who one-timed the win between Berra's legs to stake the Panthers to a 1-0 lead with 4:46 remaining in the period. The goal came on their fourth of six shots in the period. On a failed clearing attempt off Mike Mottau’s stick, David Jones wrestled the puck over to Colborne, who wristed a shot over Thomas' glove nine minutes into the period to tie the game 1-1. With Matthias in the penalty box for hooking, Baertschi put the Flames ahead at 12:04 of the second. After working the puck back to TJ Brodie at the point, Baertschi collected the rebound off Thomas' pad and buried it behind the Panthers goaltender with just six seconds remaining in the man-advantage. The goal was Baertschi's first in 15 games. Thomas denied Baertschi's attempt for a second power-play later in the second, flashing the glove to keep Florida within one. But Blair Jones managed to extend the Flames' lead to two in the third period, taking a pass in the slot from Lance Bouma behind the net and burying it into a gaping net to put Calgary up 3-1 at 5:40 before Florida’s comeback.
 
Columbus @ Vancouver 2-6 - For Daniel Sedin, going six games without a point for the first time in almost 10 years was hard because the Vancouver Canucks desperately needed his offense. Playing one period without twin brother Henrik was a lot easier. After starting the game on separate lines, Daniel and Henrik were back together for two of their three goals and four of five points, sparking a badly needed offensive outburst as the Canucks snapped a five-game losing streak by beating the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-2 Friday night. Daniel's first goal came with Mike Santorelli as his center, but he was back with his identical twin for the second period. He set up Henrik's first goal - the second of a three-goal outburst in 2:10 - and assisted on Henrik's second goal midway through the third period. Vancouver scored six goals during its five-game skid (0-3-2). They matched that total when fourth-line center Jeremy Welsh scored his first NHL goal on a deflection to make it 6-2 with 28.6 seconds left. Vancouver did most of its scoring during a 2:10 span in the second period. Zack Kassian scored the go-ahead goal at 12:05, Henrik doubled the lead 1:54 later and defenseman Alexander Edler broke the game open with another goal 16 seconds after that. Roberto Luongo was beaten on the first shot he saw but finished with 14 saves as Vancouver outshot the Blue Jackets 35-16. Things started well for the Blue Jackets, who were already without injured scoring forwards Marian Gaborik, Nathan Horton and Brandon Dubinsky, and then lost defenseman James Wisniewski, who leads the team with 16 points, to illness in the morning. In his first game back after missing 19 following early-season abdominal surgery, Matt Calvert scored on the Blue Jackets' first shot. But that was all the offense Columbus could muster until Artem Anisimov scored on a rebound with 3:02 left in the game. Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 29 saves as Columbus lost in regulation for the second time in eight games (3-2-3). Richards defended his goalie, who was beaten from a sharp angle by Daniel Sedin late in the first period, had Kassian's unscreened shot from the faceoff dot go under his blocker, and then accidentally kicked Henrik Sedin's first goal into the net with his heel. The Canucks outshot Columbus 14-4 in the opening period, and Daniel tied it from a sharp angle with 15.4 seconds left with a shot that hit a stick and lifted over Bobrovsky on the short side. After Bobrovsky robbed Alexandre Burrows and Ryan Kesler during a power play, and Cam Atkinson missed a glorious chance to put Columbus back in front, Kassian opened the floodgates shortly after the Canucks' No. 1-ranked penalty kill shut down the Blue Jackets' fourth chance on the power play. Brad Richardson, who was in the penalty box for tripping, got to a loose puck and fed Kassian at the far blue line for a 1-on-1 rush and the shot under Bobrovsky's arm. Henrik knocked a rebound of a high shot by Daniel behind Bobrovsky a couple shifts later, and Edler wired a point shot that hit a defender and went in off the post for his first goal in 15 games. Henrik deflected in Daniel's point shot midway through the third, but after Bobrovsky stuffed Jannik Hansen on a penalty shot with 3:27 left, Anisimov batted in a rebound on the next shift to make it 5-2. Welsh's tip-in gave the full house of 18,910 one last thing to cheer.
 
Tampa Bay @ Anaheim 0-1 - Ryan Getzlaf will take his fluky goal with 5.2 seconds remaining in OT, which gave the Anaheim Ducks a 1-0 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night at Honda Center. The Ducks' captain came down the left wing and fired a shot at goalie Ben Bishop. The puck bounced off Bishop and landed near the goal line before Richard Panik inadvertently helped swipe it across the line.

Colorado @ Phoenix 4-3 OT - 11/21

Ryan O'Reilly had a four-stitch cut over his left eye. Andre Benoit had a bandage covering the gash caused when he was hit with a stray puck. But both players also scored goals for the Colorado Avalanche, and the come-from-behind 4-3 overtime win against the Phoenix Coyotes on Thursday night was worth the pain - and the wait. O'Reilly took a return pass from PA Parenteau during a 4-on-3 power play and beat Phoenix goalie Mike Smith under the blocker with 41.1 seconds left in overtime. Colorado has back-to-back wins against the Chicago Blackhawks and the Coyotes after a three-game losing streak. Colorado let a 2-1 lead slip away in the third period when Phoenix got goals by Martin Hanzal and Antoine Vermette to take its first lead. But Cody McLeod swept home a Benoit rebound with 3:14 left in regulation to force overtime. O'Reilly finished it on Colorado's second power-play opportunity in OT.

"I just tried to get a shot off quick because [Smith] doesn't give you much," O'Reilly said after coming out of the training room. "It was a character win for us. We stuck with it. We gave up the lead in the third and McLeod gets a great, grinding goal by getting in the blue ice to tie it up."

Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov made 41 saves, and the Avalanche snapped the Coyotes' eight-game home winning streak and moved to 14-0-0 when scoring first this season.

"This is a big win for us. It's not an easy team to play against, they are probably one of the best in the NHL," Colorado coach Patrick Roy said. "It would have been easy for us to feel sorry for ourselves when we got behind, but we were resilient. We're giving up too many shots … but when you play against one of the best teams, it's not the number of shots you care about, it's the win. Then you could care less about how many you give up."

Phoenix has not lost in regulation at home (9-0-2), but couldn't hold a late 3-2 lead. Smith made 27 saves.

"We did a lot of things very well. We controlled a lot of the play," coach Dave Tippett said. "We had something like 75 attempts at the net. But in a tight game, mistakes matter and when you put a team on the power play twice in overtime it usually comes back to bite you - and it did."

John Mitchell and Benoit scored second-period goals to give Colorado a 2-0 lead, but Phoenix kept firing away and finally broke through. Michael Stone got the Coyotes on the board with a shot from the neutral zone that beat Varlamov late in the second period, and the Coyotes kept coming in the third. Two apparent Phoenix goals were waved off early in the period before Hanzal banged home the tying goal on his second try at 10:40. Phoenix went ahead at 14:06 when Vermette got a nice bounce off the backboards from a wayward Keith Yandle shot and was all alone to slide home a power-play goal. The lead lasted less than three minutes. Smith stopped Benoit's shot from the point, but McLeod outmuscled Rostislav Klesla for the rebound and swung a backhander along the ice and past Smith to tie the game. Phoenix killed off Hanzal's charging penalty that carried into overtime but had to play shorthanded again when Yandle slashed Tyson Barrie on the hand with 1:35 left. O'Reilly cashed in to give Colorado its 16th win in 21 games this season.Teams that were a combined 20-0-0 when leading after the first period this season were scoreless after the first 20 minutes. The Coyotes put 15 shots on Varlamov but failed to capitalize on a pair of power-play opportunities. When the Avalanche got their turn on the power play early in the second, it was a different story. Stone was called for cross-checking 25 seconds after the opening faceoff, and Colorado needed seven seconds to cash in. Nathan McKinnon had his shot in the slot blocked by Derek Morris, but the deflection went right to Mitchell, who beat Smith from point-blank range. The Avalanche doubled the lead at 15:50 when Benoit, who was hit in the chin by a puck earlier in the period and had to go off for repairs, found a cure for the pain: his first goal of the season. With Gabriel Landeskog screening Smith, Benoit took an O'Reilly pass at the top of the circles and put a high shot just inside the left post to make it 2-0. Needing a lift, the Coyotes got one from red-hot Stone. He took a cross-ice pass from Kyle Chipchura, stepped into a big shot one step inside the red line, whistled the puck through the legs of Benoit and beat Varlamov to the stick side at 17:10. Stone's goal was his fourth in the past three games and seventh of the season, tying him with Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators for the most among NHL defensemen. Phoenix pressured Colorado in the third period but had two apparent goals waved off. At 2:28, Mikkel Boedker poked a puck through Varlamov's pads but referee Dave Jackson had blown the play dead an instant before the puck crossed the goal line. At 5:11, Oliver Ekman-Larsson's shot from the point went in; however, Coyotes forward David Moss, who was tangled up with Jan Hejda in the crease, was called for interfering with Varlamov. But when Hanzal and Vermette scored 3:34 apart, the Coyotes had come all the way back and had their chance to close out the game.

"It's disappointing when you don't get those two points, there's no doubt," Vermette said. "We had a good push in the third and created a lot of chances for ourselves. It was a strange way to finish the game, putting ourselves 4-on-3 twice. That's something you want to take back."

NY Rangers @ Dallas 3-2 - 11/21

It was a tale of two goaltenders, Henrik Lundqvist looked like his old self Thursday night, while Kari Lehtonen was shaky and allowed three very soft Rangers goals. Lundqvist made 41 saves, 23 of them in the first period, to lead the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night. Chris Kreider and John Moore scored 37 seconds apart early in the third period to break open a 1-1 game as the Rangers started their five-game trip with a victory.

"Last couple of games, we lost. We didn't get the points. Now it's time to step up. We really needed this one. It was just so important to get points here," said Lundqvist, who has rebounded from his early-season struggles to lower his goals-against average to 2.36 and improve his save percentage to .921. "I think we earned this one after two, three really strong games at home without points."

Kreider broke a 1-1 tie when he beat goaltender Kari Lehtonen with a wrister from the high slot that deflected off the stick of Dallas defenseman Trevor Daley and into the net 1:18 into the final period. Moore fired a wrister from inside the right circle that hit Lehtonen's left shoulder and went in at 1:55.

"Sometimes you need a little bit of puck luck. We got some puck luck there," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said of Kreider's goal. "Johnny Moore's goal was a great goal. We hadn't scored 5-on-5 in a while. Hopefully that's the start of something real positive for us."

Dallas made it a one-goal game when rookie Alex Chiasson beat Lundqvist to the glove side with a wrister from the high slot at 8:27 for his first goal in 11 games at 8:27, but the Stars were unable to get another puck past Lundqvist.

"There's a lot of goalies around the League, that's what they do for their teams," center Brad Richards said of Lundqvist keeping the Rangers in the game. "He probably does that more than anybody. Some nights when our legs aren't going in the first and he can stand tall like that, it's a huge help. We just could tell early it was going to be tough to score on him tonight and that gives us so much confidence."

Lehtonen kept the Stars within a goal when he denied Rick Nash on a penalty shot 12 seconds after Chiasson's goal. It was the first time in franchise history the Rangers have had penalty shots in back-to-back games; Kreider was stopped by Tuukka Rask of the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.

"I was hoping he thought I was going to do the same move that I scored on and then bring it right back and tuck it in and he played it well," Nash said.

Lundqvist preserved the win in the final minutes when he robbed Jamie Benn from the slot after the Dallas captain sifted his way through the defense and wound up alone in the slot.

"The biggest save of the night was Lundqvist's on Benn's play," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said.

The Stars outshot the Rangers 23-6 in the first period but skated off the ice trailing 1-0.

"I tried to be square to the puck and battle," said Lundqvist, whose 23 saves were the most he's ever made in a single period, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Nash scored his first of the season at 5:51 on a power-play breakaway started by Lundqvist, who made a quick pass to Ryan Callahan at the Dallas blue line that caught the Stars on a line change. Callahan fed a streaking Nash, who faked a shot to Lehtonen's right, moved to the goaltender's left and slid the puck inside the post. Dallas got even at 8:46 of the second period with its first power-play goal at home in 27 chances this season. Stephane Robidas' shot struck the right hand of Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi and glanced off the left skate of defense partner Ryan McDonagh before landing in the back of the net. The Rangers looked to have regained the lead at 13:27 when Derick Brassard knocked in a loose puck. However, a video review showed Brassard had batted the puck into the net with his left glove, and the goal was waved off. Heading into the game, Dallas had won three straight after sweeping a trip through Western Canada. But Robidas knows this loss came down to a simple yet disappointing fact.

"They just took over the game right from the get go," Robidas said. "They had good pressure and they were ready to come back at us and we didn't match their work ethic on those plays."

New York continues its trip Saturday against the Nashville Predators while Dallas visits the St. Louis Blues for the first time this season.

"It's definitely not going to be an easy trip. [We're] very happy that we started this way," Vigneault said. "We've got the fathers coming in and meeting us in Nashville for Nashville and Tampa game, so I think everybody's looking forward to it. And we're going to get ready for Nashville. They won a big game tonight and we'll be ready."

In scoring three goals, the Rangers equaled their combined offensive output from their past three games.

"It's important to get early offense when you're struggling, especially on special teams," Nash said. "When you're struggling at scoring, you've got to look to your special teams for a boost and tonight we got it."

Chicago @ Winnipeg 6-3 - 11/21

With the Chicago Blackhawks in need of a jolt, Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa provided one Thursday night against the Winnipeg Jets. Hossa returned from injury and scored the game-winning goal and added an assist to help the Blackhawks beat the Jets 6-3 at MTS Centre. Toews finished with a goal and three assists and was 18-for-26 in the faceoff circle for the Blackhawks, who lead the League with 34 points.

"Any night, you'll take that," said Toews, who grew up in Winnipeg, "but it's especially special to have that happen in Winnipeg."

The Jets kept Toews off the scoresheet Nov. 2 in his hometown NHL debut. While the Blackhawks (15-4-4) were missing injured left wing Bryan Bickell (lower body), they got back Hossa, who missed three games with a lower-body injury. Hossa broke a 3-3 third-period tie, flipping a centering pass from Toews over Winnipeg goaltender Ondrej Pavelec at 3:11 for his 10th goal.

"[Hossa] was good," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "That's one thing about Hossa. He plays the right way. He's very consistent and predictable, and you expect him to play that way game in and game out, and he didn't miss a beat."

Hossa was receiving treatment after the game and was not available to speak. Patrick Kane, Brandon Saad and Ben Smith also scored goals before Patrick Sharp finished off the Jets with an empty-netter in the final minute. Andrew Ladd, Keaton Ellerby and Dustin Byfuglien scored for the Jets (10-11-3), who had two goals on four power-play chances. After a 1-for-47 stretch earlier in the month, the Jets, who began the game ranked 28th in the League on the power play, are on a 5-for-13 run. Corey Crawford stopped 22 shots two nights after the Colorado Avalanche had knocked him out of a 5-1 loss Tuesday with three goals on seven shots. The Blackhawks limited Winnipeg to two first-period shots, including 13:30 without allowing a shot. Pavelec returned from a one-game break and faced heavy pressure early. Chicago directed 12 first-period shots at Pavelec, several of them in-close scoring chances. Pavelec finished with 27 saves.

"We got what we deserved," Pavelec said. "If you play in your zone like we did tonight, you can't expect to get a point. They won the [Stanley Cup] for a reason."

The Blackhawks arrived in Winnipeg having lost two of their past three games, with opponents outscoring them 12-3 in the two defeats. Their season-high seven-game road trip began with the blowout loss to the Avalanche. The Blackhawks, who will not return to United Center until Dec. 3, continue their trip through the Western Conference on Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks.

"I really liked the way we played," Quenneville said of the Blackhawks' bounce-back effort after the Colorado loss. "I thought that we answered the bell at the start of the game and answered the bell when they had their run there in the second [period]."

Toews joined Quenneville in praising how the Blackhawks responded to road losses against two Central Division foes, Colorado and the Nashville Predators, in the past week.

"I think experience is a factor," Toews said, "and just the thought process and mentality of our hockey team. It's not just one or two guys talking. It's everybody getting into the chatter and getting that energy up so that we know that we need to respond and play better."

The Jets, winless in three games after a four-game winning streak, are last in the Central Division and need to start amassing points to remain relevant in the packed Western Conference race. After hosting the Minnesota Wild on Saturday, the Jets leave for a six-game tour through the Eastern Conference, their longest road trip of the season. Jets coach Claude Noel was not sure why his team started slowly against the defending Stanley Cup champions, who had outscored them 9-2 in the teams' two meetings earlier this month.

"It became evident why they're in first place," Noel said. "We've got a ways to go."

The Jets' effort did not sit well with Ladd either.

"I don't think we had everyone going tonight," Ladd said. "That's the first thing. You need everybody to show up and play hard. I don't think we had that. To me, that's the biggest thing."

Noel will spend the time before the Minnesota game looking for answers.

"That's a good question, what do you do?" Noel said. "That's what I'll be thinking about. How? Why? It's something I have to figure out. It's part of the job."

Kane took advantage of the Blackhawks' second power play of the game, circling through the Winnipeg zone to the top of the right circle before snapping a rising shot that fooled Pavelec at 17:26 of the first period. Kane, who has 12 goals on the season, is on a nine-game scoring streak in which he has five goals and seven assists. Saad added a 4-on-4 goal early in the second period to put Chicago up 2-0. The goal, Saad's seventh, was the first of three goals in a 48-second span that ended with the game tied at 2-2. Ladd fired his sixth goal past Crawford, beating him low to the glove side, 29 seconds after Saad's goal. Then, on the power play, Ellerby fired a hard, heavy shot from the top of the circles that snuck past Crawford. The goal ended Ellerby's 103-game drought, which stretched back to March 17, 2011, when he played for the Florida Panthers. Toews restored the visitors' lead with his 11th goal when the teams were skating 4-on-4. Chicago's captain peeled down the right boards and beat Ellerby to the net before lifting a shot over Pavelec at 11:03. But Byfuglien went to work after back-to-back minors to Chicago's Johnny Oduya and Michal Rozsival set up a two-man advantage for the Jets. Byfuglien needed 14 seconds to drive the net and push a puck through Crawford's pads at 13:30. Byfuglien, who did not score in the Jets' first 18 games, has six goals in his past six.

"We walk into the third period, we're tied 3-3," Noel said. "We're still in the game. We just [needed] to muster up 20 minutes. They stepped it up. We weren't able to step up."

After Hossa's goal made it 4-3, Smith shoveled his third goal of the season under Pavelec at 5:22 before Sharp scored his eighth of the season into an empty net with 54.1 seconds remaining.

Results - Thu, Nov 21, 2013

 
St Louis @ Boston 3-2 SO - Derek Roy beat Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask in the fourth round of the shootout to give the Blues a 3-2 victory. St. Louis heads home from a 2-1-0 road trip with a 15-3-3 record, its best after 21 games in franchise history. The Bruins fell to 14-6-2. Roy, who scored one of the Blues' goals in regulation, hit the crossbar on an overtime breakaway. Carl Soderberg, who also scored a goal in regulation, had Boston's best scoring chance in overtime, but Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak stopped his breakaway attempt. Bruins center Gregory Campbell opened the scoring at 18:20 when he one-timed a pass from Matt Bartkowski off the heel of his stick. The puck stayed on the ice and glided past Halak to the glove side. Campbell hadn't scored in 30 games dating back to last April. The Blues tied the game 31 seconds later with an equally awkward goal. Roy one-touched the puck from the top of the left circle toward the net. The puck fluttered a little bit, but stayed along the ice as it went past Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk and Blues forward Chris Stewart, who were battling at the left dot, and slid through Rask's five-hole before the goaltender could get his stick down. St. Louis grabbed its first lead with 5:56 remaining in the second period. David Backes won a draw against Milan Lucic after Bruins center David Krejci was kicked out of the circle. Backes then went to the net, where he joined teammate Alexander Steen. Kevin Shattenkirk's shot from the point went off Backes' stick and past Rask for a 2-1 lead. Soderberg made sure the teams went to the second intermission all even. Chris Kelly sent the puck from behind the net to Soderberg at the top of the right circle, and Soderberg's wrist shot went through Kelly's screen and over Halak at 18:41. In the shootout, Patrice Bergeron scored for Boston and Steen tied it in the second round before Roy's fourth-round winner.
 
Nashville @ Toronto 4-2 - Craig Smith scored two goals and Matt Cullen had four points Thursday to give the Nashville Predators a 4-2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre. Smith's power-play goal, the Predators' second of the night, at 16:25 of the second period gave them a 3-1 lead. His goal early in the third period, his sixth of the season, made it 4-1. The Maple Leafs scored first when Peter Holland skated into the offensive zone and fired a wrist shot past goalie Marek Mazanec at 5:48 of the first period. It was Holland's second goal of the season, his first for the Maple Leafs after arriving in a trade from the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday. Holland had room to gain the zone when Predators captain Shea Weber laid a big hit on Nikolai Kulemin in the neutral zone. With Holland only having Roman Josi defending him, he let his shot go from the faceoff dot and past Mazanec. After Maple Leafs forward Mason Raymond picked up a high-sticking double-minor 1:25 into the second period, the Predators tied the game when Seth Jones scored his third of the season at 2:01. Jones' shot was deflected by a defender on the way to net and the redirection helped get the puck past goalie Jonathan Bernier. The Predators took a 2-1 lead at 11:14 of the second period when Cullen scored his fourth goal of the season. He received a quick pass from the half-boards from Gabriel Bourque and snapped a wrist shot by Bernier through his five-hole. Cullen assisted on the other three Predators goals. A boarding call to James van Riemsdyk led to Smith's power-play goal in the second. Nashville went 2-for-4 with the man-advantage. The Maple Leafs cut the lead to 4-2 when Nazem Kadri scored his sixth goal of the season. He was playing his first game after a three-game suspension for hitting Minnesota Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom.
 
Buffalo @ Philadelphia 1-4 - Read beat Sabres goalie Ryan Miller at 14:09 and again at 15:49, both off feeds by Steve Downie, after Buffalo grabbed the lead late in the first period on Tyler Myers' power-play goal. Vincent Lecavalier added a power-play goal midway through the third period and Scott Hartnell hit the empty net with 10.9 seconds left in the game. After the Flyers failed to score during 41 seconds of a 5-on-3 advantage in the first, they saw their 5-on-4 power play cut short by a high-sticking call against Mark Streit at 16:29. Buffalo capitalized on its power play when Myers scored off a scramble one second before Streit would have stepped out of the box. The Sabres buzzed the Flyers zone and had Philadelphia's defense scrambling before Tyler Ennis fired a shot from the lower right circle that hit the far post. The puck sat in the crease and Myers jammed it over the goal line at 18:28 for his second goal of the season, giving the Sabres their first lead after one period in 24 games this season. Buffalo had a chance to add to its lead when Flyers forward Scott Hartnell was assessed a double minor for high sticking Buffalo defenseman Mike Weber. The Sabres managed four shots, not counting Christian Ehrhoff's blast off the post, but put only sporadic pressure on Emery. Philadelphia got a second 5-on-3 power play, this one for 1:22, in the second period when Myers was called for tripping at 5:45 and a bad line change led to a bench penalty for too many men at 6:23. The Flyers had plenty of zone time, but their three shots were easily stopped by Miller. The Flyers finally got one past Miller at 14:09. Read slid off the left boards and was unchecked as he drifted into the slot. Downie controlled the puck in the right circle and slid a pass for Read's one-timer into a half-empty net. Downie and Read teamed again on their next shift to put the Flyers in front. Downie picked up a carom after a Buffalo clearing pass hit a linesman and slid a backhand pass toward the front of the net, where Read had been left all alone. Read deked Miller to the ice, stepped to his right and flipped the puck high into the net at 15:49 for his sixth of the season. Lecavalier scored his eighth of the season at 9:58 of the third on a one-timer from the right circle on the Flyers' sixth power play.
 
Carolina @ Detroit 3-4 - Gustav Nyquist scored 17 seconds into the game, then added the eventual game-winner on a breakaway in the third period of a 4-3 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes. Nyquist, playing his first NHL game this season, got his first goal off a rebound when he slid a forehand past goalie Justin Peters. Henrik Zetterberg had created a turnover and left a touch pass for a hard shot by Jonathan Ericsson that kicked back to Nyquist at Peters' left. In the third period, Nyquist picked up a clear by Zetterberg at the offensive blue line, skated in alone on Peters, deked and slid a backhand into the net with 4:02 to go. Detroit broke a 2-2 tie in the third period with 15 seconds to go in a two-minute, 5-on-3 power play. A shot by Niklas Kronwall ping-ponged away from the net toward Hurricanes forward Jordan Staal, who kicked it into his own net at 8:29. Detroit did not allow a goal during a Carolina 5-on-3 of 1:36 near the end of the second period. Detroit held a 2-0 lead, but Sekera evened the game at 12:51 of the second period. He picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone, skated around Red Wings forward Todd Bertuzzi and had his shot tip off defenseman Kronwall's stick past Jonas Gustavsson's glove side. It came 7:02 after defenseman Brett Bellemore got Carolina on the scoreboard with his first NHL goal. Bellemore, a 25-year-old playing his 26th NHL game, finished a give-and-go with Radek Dvorak off the right-wing boards. It was Dvorak's first assist since Feb. 24, 2012, a span of 36 games (17 this season). Sekera scored a shorthanded goal with 16 seconds to go for the final score. The Red Wings took their two-goal lead when Darren Helm scored 2:37 into the second period. Justin Abdelkader was cycling on the right-wing boards, changed direction and headed toward the net. His shot popped back to Helm, who lifted a forehand from the slot over Peters. Hurricanes forward Jeff Skinner played for the first time since Oct. 24 after he missed 11 games with an upper-body injury. Carolina played its second game without Alexander Semin, who's out with a concussion. Brendan Shanahan, the NHL senior vice president of player safety and hockey operations, dropped the puck for the ceremonial opening faceoff. Shanahan, who played for the Red Wings from 1996-2006 and was a member of three Stanley Cup-winning teams, was honored before the game for his recent induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
 
Florida @ Edmonton 1-4 - Jordan Eberle opened the scoring on the power play 57 seconds into the game when he knocked a rebound past Thomas at the side of the net after the goaltender turned aside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' point shot. Nugent-Hopkins had three assists. Gagner extended the Oilers' lead 6:10 into the second. He was the beneficiary of a good individual effort from Nail Yakupov, who played the puck to himself off the boards at center, then led an odd-man rush into the Panthers zone. Yakupov used Ales Hemsky as a decoy and sent a pass across to Gagner, who beat Thomas for his first goal of the season. The Oilers added another power-play goal at 10:54 of the second when David Perron tipped in Justin Schultz's point shot. Scottie Upshall cut into the Oilers' lead at 16:34, finding a hole between Dubnyk and the post on a wraparound. The Oilers goaltender was hugging the post, but Upshall was somehow able to squeeze the puck past him. The goal snapped Dubnyk's shutout streak at 119:26. Eberle added an empty-netter with 1:12 left in regulation. He has eight goals.
 
New Jersey @ Los Angeles 2-1 OT - After the cameras drifted away and his postgame scrum died down some, Jaromir Jagr spoke modestly about former teammate Mario Lemieux and the impact Lemieux had on his career. Jagr's teammates have been heaping the same praise on him for years now, and it was quite poignant Thursday night after Jagr tied Lemieux for ninth on the all-time goal-scoring list with an overtime winner that gave the New Jersey Devils an improbable 2-1 victory against the Los Angeles Kings. Jagr's 690th career goal came when he took a pass from Marek Zidlicky and toe-dragged the puck past goalie Ben Scrivens at 2:30 of overtime to pull even with Lemieux.

"I didn't really have a chance to see Wayne [Gretzky] when he was doing the 200-point season when he was in Edmonton," said Jagr, who joined the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990 and was a member of two Stanley Cup-winning teams with Lemieux. "When I came in the League I was playing with Mario. He was the guy I was looking up to. I know Wayne got all the records, but to me, I got a better chance to look for Mario. I could see him every day in practice, the way he plays. He was a huge influence on the game I play. I was pretty lucky to see him at his best. I tied him, but he probably played 600 less games than me. This is just a number, but he didn't play many games. If he would have played as many games as me, he would probably have 2,500 points and 900 goals."

Lemieux scored his 600 goals in 915 games; Thursday was Jagr's 1,413rd. The goal was also Jagr's 18th in overtime, extending his own NHL record, and his team-high ninth of the season. Jagr also tied Gordie Howe for first on the all-time game-winning goals list with No. 121.

"He played 'til 50," Jagr, 41, said of Mr. Hockey. "I've got nine years to go."

While Lemieux has company, New Jersey has some overtime mojo. The Devils were 0-5 in games that went beyond regulation before beating the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday; they now have back-to-back OT victories in the first two games of a three-game trip. It took a great breakout for the Kings to get their first goal and force a 1-1 tie 65 seconds after New Jersey remarkably put a puck in the net after 40-plus minutes of ineffectiveness. Anze Kopitar came down with speed on a 2-on-1 with Justin Williams and fired a shot off Schneider. The puck bounced inches from the goal line and Williams beat his man to tap it in at 6:57 of the third period. It was an important response required by L.A. after it bottled up the Devils for most of the night only to see New Jersey break through on its seventh shot of the game. Ryan Carter wheeled around the left side and sent a backhand that sailed through Willie Mitchell's legs and into the top corner of the net at 5:52, and just like that, New Jersey had a 1-0 lead. It was the first meeting between the teams at Staples Center since the Kings beat the Devils in Game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final to win the first championship in franchise history. This wasn't nearly as dramatic but L.A. channeled that championship defense and didn't allow the Devils so much as a nibble, outshooting them 27-5 through two periods.

 
Tampa Bay @ San Jose 1-5 - When San Jose Sharks forward Brent Burns was activated from injured reserve Thursday and rejoined linemates Joe Thornton and Tomas Hertl against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Tommy Wingels had to find a new home. It didn't take long for Wingels to feel comfortable with new linemates Logan Couture and Patrick Marleau, or for the new trio to click. Wingels scored a career-high two goals, Couture had a career-high three assists, and Marleau had a goal and an assist. They combined for eight points and led the Sharks to a 5-1 victory against the Lightning at SAP Center. Brad Stuart and Burns also scored for the Sharks, and goaltender Antti Niemi made 36 saves. Tyler Johnson scored for Tampa Bay. Backup goaltender Anders Lindback stopped 31 of 36 shots. After going 3-1-1 on a five-game road trip that ended with a 5-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday, the Sharks opened a five-game homestand by snapping a rare three-game home losing streak. Burns scored his fifth goal in his return to the lineup after missing 13 games with an upper-body injury. Wingels gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead at 3:39 of the first period. Marleau won a battle along the left boards, knocking the puck to Couture for a short pass to Wingels in the low left circle, where he wristed a shot past Lindback. Tampa Bay had a great chance to pull even on the power play after Wingels went to the penalty box at 14:13 for tripping Valtteri Filppula. The Lightning's top power-play unit controlled the puck the entire two minutes and put three shots on goal, but couldn't score against Niemi and an exhausted foursome of penalty-killers, Scott Hannan, Marleau, Stuart and Joe Pavelski. Stuart made it 2-0 at 18:03, blasting a long rebound from above the left circle that snuck inside the left post. The goal was Stuart's second of the season and second in five games. Tyler Kennedy and Couture earned assists. Wingels increased the lead to 3-0 at 11:47 of the second period. From behind the net, Marleau zipped a pass to Wingels, just to the right of the crease. Wingels fired the puck between former Sharks defenseman Matthew Carle and Teddy Purcell and past Lindback. The Sharks scored two more goals in a 19-second span early in the third period to take a 5-0 lead. Hannan hammered a shot from above the left circle that bounced off Thornton before deflecting off Burns' skate and past Lindback at 4:23. Marleau scored at 4:42 on a breakaway. He whiffed on his first attempt from close range, but beat Lindback with a backhand, slipping the puck inside the right post. Couture had the primary assist. Johnson ended Niemi's shutout bid at 7:39 when he took a pass from Ondrej Palat in the slot and blasted a shot past the goaltender's glove.

Pittsburgh @ Washington 4-0 - 11/20

The Pittsburgh Penguins continued their dominance of the Washington Capitals in the teams' first-ever meeting as Metropolitan Division rivals. Sidney Crosby scored a goal and assisted on another, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 18 saves for his 25th career shutout to lead the Penguins to a 4-0 victory against the Capitals on Wednesday at Verizon Center. Pittsburgh's victory was its fifth in a row against Washington dating to the 2011-12 season; the Penguins have outscored the Capitals 21-9 over that span. Paul Martin gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead at 6:38 of the first period. After the Capitals were called for icing, Crosby bested Brooks Laich on the ensuing faceoff. As the puck caromed off the half-wall, Crosby passed it back to Martin, whose floating wrist shot handcuffed a screened Braden Holtby (36 saves), fluttering over the Capitals goaltender's left shoulder into the corner of the net. The Penguins doubled their lead a little more than five minutes later when their deft puck movement in the neutral zone allowed Beau Bennett to split the Capitals defense and beat Holtby to the blocker side with a clean wrist shot. Bennett's goal capped off a dominant first period in which the Penguins dictated the flow, they had a 17-6 shot advantage, including a 15-2 margin at even strength, and shut down the Capitals' potent power play, which was on the ice for a total of 5:09. Alex Ovechkin was held to a season-low two shots on goal.

"I don't know if we expect to hop out to that kind of shot advantage, but certainly the pace and how we played was excellent," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. "We got some real good scoring opportunities. We get the faceoff goal that gets us out in front. But equally as important, they had opportunities on the power play there, especially in the first half of the game, and that was a big part of the game."

The game took on a more frenetic pace in the early stages of the second period, particularly during a Pittsburgh power play that saw Washington get the better scoring chances during a spirited penalty kill. Yet it was on a power play in the period's waning moments that the Penguins extended their lead to 3-0, once again on an impressive passing display. In rapid succession, the puck moved from Evgeni Malkin at the half-wall to Chris Kunitz in the slot to James Neal along the goal line before Crosby one-timed Neal's pass past Holtby from the lower left circle for his 11th goal of the season.

"I saw [Malkin] had the puck and I think [Neal] went down low, [and Kunitz] was kind of [in the] middle there," Crosby said. "I just tried to kind of find the open ice and saw the puck coming quick from Nealer on the goal line. There was a little room there on the blocker side, and I tried to get it away."

The Penguins extended their lead to 4-0 at 7:16 of the third period when Neal received a pass from Martin and carved through the offensive zone before firing a snap shot past Holtby. The loss was the Capitals' first at home since Oct. 16, snapping a six-game winning streak at Verizon Center. After jumping over the Penguins for first place in the division Sunday, the Capitals are now three points back of their front-running rivals.

"It's disappointing. Extremely disappointing," defenseman Karl Alzner said. "We had a chance to be in first place and to beat the team we are battling against. That would have been really nice. But we get another crack at them a little further down the road."

The game Wednesday marked the first time the teams met as division foes since they played in March 1993 as members of the Patrick Division.