Nightly Scrap: Blackhawks end Ducks’ winning streak
The Chicago Blackhawks prevented the Anaheim Ducks from winning a franchise record seventh consecutive game by beating them in overtime 3-2. Sophomore Viktor Stalberg scored his sixth of the season in extra innings as the team also got a goal from Marian Hossa and Patrick Kane. Clearly facing a team that relies similarly on their star players motivated the superstars on the Blackhawks, snapping a three game losing streak.
Corey Crawford was good enough to get the win by turning away 24 shots and getting his first win since October 11th. By contrast Jonas Hiller stopped 40 shots but just could not earn the win. Corey Perry would score both Ducks goals and now has eight on the year.
In Washington, the Capitals avoided losing on back-to-back nights by defeating the Atlanta Thrashers– who coincidentally lost on back-to-back nights. However, the Thrashers would not go down easily.
It would take goals from Alexander Ovechkin, Mike Green, Alexander Semin, Matt Hendricks, John Erskine and Dave Steckel to get the 6-4 victory. On the other side, Rich Peverley, Andrew Ladd and Bryan Little (2) scored for the opposition. Michal Neuvirth would get the win, his 11th on the year, to pull back into the League lead in wins.
The Minnesota Wild surprisingly delivered the third straight loss to Guy Boucher and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Niklas Backstrom kept 37 of 38 shots out of the net while the disgruntled Martin Havlat added three assists from the third line. Cal Clutterbuck, Eric Nystrom, John Madden and Antti Miettinen would score for their team while the Lightning only countered with a tally from Martin St. Louis.
Last but not least we get to a bloody match in Madison Square Garden with the New York Rangers defeating the Edmonton Oilers 8-2. After Marian Gaborik got his team out to a 1-0 lead, the Rangers would soon lose the lead and find themselves down 2-1. At that point they fired back with an unprecedented seven unanswered goals including a hat trick by Gaborik, two from Alexander Frolov and tallies from Artem Anisimov, Brian Boyle and Ruslan Fedotenko. Overall the first line finished with a combined eleven points with Erik Christensen picking up three assists as well.
For the Oilers, Nikolai Khabibulin continues to play poorly leading to speculation that Devan Dubnyk could play some more games moving forward. This start marked the third time this week where Khabibulin has allowed more than four goals, progressively increasing his goals allowed with four, six and now eight. He would finish the week with a GAA over eight and a .727 SV%.
That just about wraps up a very light night of hockey. Be sure to check us all day as we bring you the most relevant fantasy hockey news possible. You can follow us on twitter @dailyfaceoff as we continue to bring you information on starting goalies, team lineups and major injury updates as well as provide in-depth injury updates and player rankings in the future.