Nightly Scrap: Goals, goals and more goals in Philly
Last night the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning seemed to score every other minute. Surprisingly, the eighth goal for the Lightning– which finally sealed the game– came off the stick of fourth liner Nate Thompson and was the only goal in the third period as the teams finally tightened up around their backup.
Sergei Bobrovsky allowed four goals on 11 shots while Dan Ellis similarly let in four on ten tries. Both backups, Brian Boucher and Mike Smith, would then face 22 shots with the former taking the loss in the wild 8-7 game.
Several players for the Lightning contributed by Martin St. Louis stood out the most with five assists as did Steven Stamkos with three goals and two assists over the night. They shared their production with a plethora of teammates including Ryan Malone, Steve Downie and Teddy Purcell. Meanwhile the Flyers continue to score in bunches with a balanced attack as Nikolai Zherdev was the only player with three points while four other players– Scott Hartnell, Matt Carle, Sean O’Donnell and Mike Richards— put in multiple points.
Meanwhile, in Boston someone not named Tim Thomas earned a shutout for the Bruins. Tuukka Rask turned aside a healthy 41 shots en route to his first win of the season, a 4-0 rout of the Florid Panthers. Milan Lucic also helped his cause by adding a hat trick, assisted twice by Patrice Bergeron and all three times by former Panther Nathan Horton. This win now gives the Bruins three in a row as they climb back up in the standings.
Speaking of shutouts, Nashville Predators starting goalie Pekka Rinne did just that against the Montreal Canadiens, beating them 3-0. Marcel Goc scored twice for the Preds while top line center Cal O’Reilly added a marker of his own. Rinne and the Preds have now won three of their last four.
Don’t look now but the Toronto Maple Leafs have won two straight, handing yet another loss to the pitiful New Jersey Devils. In addition, starting goalie Martin Brodeur left the game in the second period and needs to be reevaluated back home. The Leafs’ powerplay continues to stay hot as they got markers from Mikhail Grabovski and Kris Versteeg with the man advantage. Phil Kessel also put his ninth goal of the year in the back of the net.
Our last destination is another slugfest in Dallas where the Stars came back against the San Jose Sharks. Without Douglas Murray and Niclas Wallin the Sharks have had trouble keeping leads, losing in the third period for the second time in as many nights. However, the team’s second line continues to roll as both Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski each scored. Mike Ribeiro scored once in the third period and again in overtime leading the Stars to the win. Brad Richards also put up three points as the team simply peppered Antti Niemi with 41 shots.
That just about wraps up a 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.