Nightly Scrap: Thomas, Halak continue to dominate
For Phil Kessel, the homecoming had to be humbling. The young right wing accounted for six of 20 shots but like every one of his teammates failed to put one past Tim Thomas. Patrice Bergeron scored his first goal of the year, on the powerplay, as the Bruins won their fifth game of the season.
Similarly, in Nashville, the St. Louis Blues finally solved Pekka Rinne. Alexander Steen, Patrik Berglund and Matt D’Agostini all scored for their team and Jaroslav Halak turned aside all 24 shots as the Blues cruised to their third straight win and first road victory. Like the Bruins, the Blues now have five wins on the year.
Without the services of Jimmy Howard, the Detroit Red Wings fell to the Phoenix Coyotes 4-2. Hard-luck loser Ilya Bryzgalov definitely needed the win as the team broke a three game losing streak. His counterpart, Chris Osgood, allowed three goals, all of which came in the games first 12 minutes, putting the Wings in a serious hole. Lauri Korpikoski scored his first two goals of the season, Radim Vrbata scored his first goal since Prague and Keith Yandle did his best to silence trade rumors with his second of the year.
Wojtek Wolski did not play for the Coyotes as he continues to be scoreless on the season.
In a shocking turn of events, the Minnesota Wild defeated the Washington Capitals 2-1 thanks to some heroics from Niklas Backstrom. Mikko Koivu (another powerplay tally) and Chuck Kobasew got the Wild on the board and the team held on despite a third period Alexander Ovechkin goal.
With Jonathan Quick back between the pipes the Kings found themselves back to their winning ways handing the Dallas Stars a 5-2 loss, their third in a row. In fact, they scored so much on starting goalie Kari Lehtonen that we saw an Andrew Raycroft sighting. Jack Johnson continues to step up in the absence of Drew Doughty while Wayne Simmonds put up two points from the third line.
Finally we get to the slugfest in Calgary, where two backups faced-off against each other. Although there were 11 total goals allowed by the goalies, Henrik Karlsson faced almost double the amount of shots that Peter Budaj did. The young Avs continue to carry the offense with Chris Stewart (vote for him here) putting up a hat trick while Brandon Yip, TJ Galiardi and Daniel Winnik also scored for their team. Not to mention three assists for Ryan O’Reilly and two for both Paul Stastny and Kyle Cumiskey.
The Flames were a bit less balanced getting goals from primarily their top two lines. If they could have protected Karlsson better they most likely would have had a better chance at winning the game. Instead they squandered multi-point games for Niclas Hagman, Matt Stajan and Olli Jokinen.
In the other contests around the League, the Senators defeated the Panthers 5-3 while the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Edmonton Oilers 3-2 via shootout. Be sure to check back all day as we continue to roll out relevant fantasy hockey information all day. You can also follow us on twitter @dailyfaceoff