Nightly Scrap: Thomas shuts down Vrbata, Coyotes

Tim Thomas certainly wasn’t kidding when he said he wants to regain his status as starting goalie.  The former Vezina Trophy winner helped the Boston Bruins rebound in their second game of the season by shutting out the Phoenix Coyotes.  At 36-years-old he showed no signs of slowing down and turned aside all 29 shots.

Thanks to a second multi-point game from Nathan Horton, the journeyman received more than enough goal support and could have temporarily taken back his role.  Milan Lucic and Tyler Seguin also scored for the Bs as they start to prove to the League they can score goals; or at least more than last season where they put in a League-worst 196.

Who would have thought Tyler would score before Taylor?

Speaking of Taylor… Taylor Hall registered his first NHL point with an assist as the Oilers remained undefeated.  Nikolai Khabibulin turned aside 26 shots en route to his second victory of the season.  The captain, Shawn Horcoff, scored his second goal of the year as the puck deflected off his skate and in.  Horcoff certainly looks to prove he has fantasy value even though his first goal seemed to be similar.

Marty Reasoner scored the only two goals for the Florida Panthers, which is half of last seasons total.  On the other hand, Tomas Vokoun displayed a rare poor performance, letting in three goals on only 13 shots.  Seems like Florida will continue to be bad as they certainly got off on the wrong foot.

Speaking of bad goaltending… Jonathan Bernier had a forgettable season debut.  The box score would not show it but Craig Conroy’s goal simply needed to be stopped.  His line for the night actually looked pretty good:  2.00 GAA and .935 SV%.  His counterpart, Miikka Kiprusoff, received a well-deserved win and missed a shutout by less than six minutes.

Nobody on the Flames put up a multi-point effort, but Curtis Glencross, Nicklas Hagman and Craig Conroy lit the lamp once each.  Dustin Brown deflected LA’s lone goal with the man advantage; interesting to note that he is on the top powerplay unit with Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty.

We hope you enjoyed our latest edition of Nightly Scrap, a daily column which discusses past games and their fantasy relevance. Make sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyfaceoff and let your voice be heard below.