Tag: NHL

The Seattle Kraken came from behind to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 on Tuesday night, thanks to fourth-line players Tye Kartye and Brandon Tanev. The Kraken were down by two goals but rallied in the second period with goals from Kartye, Tanev, Eeli Tolvanen, and Will Borgen.

Jared McCann scored an empty-net goal late in the game to seal the win. Jordan Eberle had two assists, and McCann also finished with two points. Goaltender Joey Daccord made 38 saves in the victory.

For the Blue Jackets, Sean Kuraly and Zach Aston-Reese each had a goal and an assist. Kevin Labanc assisted on both goals. However, Columbus’ losing streak stretched to six games (0-5-1), and goaltender Elvis Merzlikins stopped 28 of 32 shots.

The Kraken took control of the game in the second period, outshooting Columbus 20-8. Kartye got the Kraken on the board early in the second, scoring a spinning backhand goal at 2:50.

Tanev tied the game at 7:13 after a two-on-one rush, beating Merzlikins with a wrist shot. Seattle took the lead just 10 seconds later with Tolvanen’s power-play goal. McCann won a faceoff, and Eberle passed to Tolvanen for a tip-in. McCann reached a milestone with that assist, becoming the first Kraken player to reach 200 career points.

Borgen added a fourth goal for Seattle at 13:34, scoring on a wrist shot from the high slot during an odd-man rush, his first goal of the season.

Columbus had a strong start, outshooting the Kraken 18-6 in the first period and taking a 2-0 lead. The Blue Jackets opened the scoring at 13:46 when Kuraly’s shot deflected off Eberle’s stick and hit him in the back, allowing Kuraly to tap it in. Just 22 seconds later, they doubled their lead when Aston-Reese redirected a shot from Kuraly into the net over Daccord’s shoulder.

The Vegas Golden Knights are hoping to get their second road win of the season when they start a two-game trip in Anaheim on Wednesday.

Their struggles on the road so far this season have them tied with Nashville and Columbus for the fewest road wins in the NHL. However, if history is any guide, the Golden Knights’ fortunes could improve this week.

That’s because this road trip, which ends on Friday night in Salt Lake City against the Utah Hockey Club, has been labeled as this year’s “Dad’s Trip” for the team. Vegas has never lost a game during this special trip, with a perfect 9-0-1 record in such games.

“The simplest answer to me is that everyone wants to make their parents proud,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy explained. “I think our guys want to win for their dads. I think it is as simple as that.”

During the trip, the players’ fathers will sit together wearing their sons’ jerseys. They also get to join team meetings, watch practices, and have meals with the team.

“It’s very exciting,” forward Brett Howden said. “It’s fun for all the dads to be around and obviously have a little buzz going with all the excitement. It’s just fun to see all the dads.”

The Golden Knights, who are one point behind the first-place Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific Division, could use a boost. Their eight-game home winning streak, which matched a franchise record, ended on Monday with a 5-2 loss to Carolina.

Vegas fell behind early in that game, getting outshot 16-4 in the first period. They trailed 4-0 by the 26-minute mark and didn’t score until the 6:11 point of the third period, when Jack Eichel scored. Starting goaltender Adin Hill was pulled after giving up four goals on 21 shots, making him the first Golden Knights goalie to be pulled this season.

“When it’s 4-0, it’s tough to come back,” center William Karlsson said. “It always sucks when a goalie has to come out of the nets.”

“I wouldn’t put it on Hilly,” Cassidy said. “I’m not putting any of the game on Hilly. It was just about changing the momentum.”

Anaheim, meanwhile, ended a four-game losing streak with a 4-2 win over Columbus on Sunday. John Gibson made 38 saves in his season debut after recovering from emergency appendectomy surgery on Sept. 25.

“I played catch-up a lot (during) training camp and the last few weeks,” Gibson said. “Credit to the guys for coming on early, staying on after, shooting on me and help me get the work to prepare and get back into game speed. … It was a good team effort.”

Ducks coach Greg Cronin got goals from all four of his newly formed lines. Brett Leason and defenseman Jackson LaCombe each scored their first goals of the season, while Leo Carlsson and Isac Lundestrom also found the back of the net.

It was just the second time this season that Anaheim, who has scored the fewest goals in the NHL with just 31, managed to score four goals in a game.

“We’ve been trying to bingo-ball lines together,” Cronin said. “Try and create some identity within the lines, which would obviously strengthen our team identity. We keep putting pucks (on net), and I think that’ll unlock some of this frustration with the scoring.”

Leon Draisaitl scored two goals on Tuesday night, including the game-winning goal just 1:52 into overtime, as the Edmonton Oilers defeated the New York Islanders 4-3.

Anders Lee scored twice in the final minutes for the Islanders to tie the game, but the Oilers took control in overtime, getting all four shots. With the Islanders’ trio of Bo Horvat, Simon Holmstrom, and Ryan Pulock still on the ice for nearly two full minutes, Connor McDavid and Draisaitl came on for a shift change.

McDavid passed the puck to Evan Bouchard, who then found Draisaitl for a close-range shot that beat goalie Ilya Sorokin.

Bouchard (who had two assists) and McDavid also scored for the Oilers, who have now won two games in a row after a two-game losing streak. McDavid added three assists, bringing him one point away from 1,000 career points.

Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner made 19 saves in the win.

For the Islanders, Kyle Palmieri scored in the second period, and Sorokin had 38 saves. This was the Islanders’ second straight overtime loss.

After a scoreless first period, Draisaitl gave the Oilers the lead with a power-play goal 36 seconds into the second. Palmieri answered for the Islanders, tying the game at 1-1 with 4:02 left in the second, when he received a pass from Maxim Tsyplakov and beat Skinner with a shot under his stick arm.

In the third, Bouchard gave the Oilers a 2-1 lead just 57 seconds in, capping off an extended attack in the Islanders’ zone. McDavid then made it 3-1 with 9:41 left, stealing a pass from Noah Dobson and scoring with a no-look pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Lee started the Islanders’ comeback with a goal at 12:16, after a shot by Pulock bounced off Skinner’s pads. With the extra attacker on, Lee scored again, taking a pass from Jean-Gabriel Pageau and firing it past Bouchard and under Skinner with 2:40 left to make it 3-3.

The Los Angeles Kings are currently in first place in the Pacific Division, but their performance has been up and down for the past month.

At the start of the season, the Kings lost three out of their first four games. Since then, they’ve been inconsistent, never winning or losing more than two games in a row. If this trend continues, they might be due for a win when they play the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Wednesday night.

Los Angeles is coming off a 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on Monday, starting a short two-game road trip. The Kings and Avalanche will meet for the first time this season, and for Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, it will be a chance to face his old team.

Kuemper, who was part of the Colorado team that won the Stanley Cup in 2022, made 25 saves in the loss to Calgary.

The Kings weren’t happy with their performance against the Flames. Calgary scored twice in a 36-second span in the second period to take a 2-0 lead, and Los Angeles couldn’t score enough to catch up.

“It was just one of those games where we didn’t connect, we didn’t play well enough, we didn’t have the energy that you need,” said Kings captain Anze Kopitar. “We were playing catch-up for most of the game and still stayed in it until the end. Everything has to be better.”

Meanwhile, the Avalanche are coming off a 3-2 overtime win against the Nashville Predators on Monday, and have won their first two games of a four-game homestand, which will end on Friday. Colorado could have nearly all of its forwards back soon.

Jonathan Drouin, who has been out since the season opener with an upper-body injury, is close to returning, as is Miles Wood. Wood has missed the past six games with an upper-body injury, but both players were seen practicing in regular jerseys on Tuesday.

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said he would check with the team trainers before making a final decision about their status. The team also sent forwards T.J. Tynan and Nikita Prishchepov down to the AHL, which could mean Drouin and Wood will be back in the lineup on Wednesday.

Valeri Nichushkin, who has been suspended since the spring, is eligible to return on Friday and is expected to play. He had been placed in the Player Assistance Program during the playoffs last season.

The only top-six forwards still injured for Colorado are Ross Colton (foot) and captain Gabriel Landeskog (knee).

Despite all these injuries, Colorado has managed to stay strong thanks to the performances of stars like Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, who are among the top point leaders in the league. Makar’s defensive partner, Devon Toews, has struggled this season but coach Bednar said Toews is still performing well, even if he’s not fully healthy.

“(Toews) at 80 percent is still better than lots of other players in the league,” Bednar said.

Sam Bennett was not able to play for the Florida Panthers on Tuesday due to an upper-body injury, but the team doesn’t expect him to be out for long.

Bennett, who is the Panthers’ second-leading scorer this season, was scratched from the lineup for the game against the New Jersey Devils, which the Panthers lost 4-1, ending their seven-game winning streak.

It’s unclear exactly when Bennett got injured, and Panthers coach Paul Maurice said that there were no expected lineup changes for the game, except for Spencer Knight starting in goal instead of Sergei Bobrovsky. Bennett wasn’t part of the morning skate on Tuesday because he felt something “tighten up,” and the issue didn’t improve during the day.

“We don’t even know if it’ll keep him out of another game,” Maurice said. “He may come back in (Wednesday) and be 100% fine. And if not, it wouldn’t be a long-term situation.”

Mackie Samoskevich filled in for Bennett in the forward lines on Tuesday.

Bennett had scored nine goals and added six assists in Florida’s first 15 games, ranking second on the team in points behind only Sam Reinhart. This is his best start to a season, surpassing his previous best of 10 points through 15 games two seasons ago.

In his 11th NHL season, Bennett has totaled 300 career points — 146 goals and 154 assists — in 630 games with Calgary and Florida. He also contributed seven goals and seven assists during Florida’s run to the Stanley Cup final last season.

The Panthers will play New Jersey again on Thursday night and host Winnipeg on Saturday.

The Washington Capitals have brought back veteran center Lars Eller.

On Tuesday, Washington traded a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2027 third-round pick to Pittsburgh to get Eller, who spent seven seasons with the Capitals and was part of the team that won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 2018.

The 35-year-old Eller had 4 goals and 3 assists in 17 games with the Penguins. He was in the second season of a two-year deal he signed with Pittsburgh in the summer of 2023.

Eller has 182 goals and 227 assists in 1,053 games played with Montreal, Washington, Colorado, and Pittsburgh. He is known for being a solid two-way player and penalty killer, and now he is returning to a Capitals team that has had a strong start to the season in the tough Metropolitan Division.

As of Wednesday, the Capitals were 10-4-0, sitting in third place in the division behind Carolina and New Jersey.

“We are excited to welcome Lars back to our organization,” said Capitals general manager Chris Patrick. “This move enhances our depth at the critical center position. Lars is a versatile player that we are confident will strengthen our team’s depth and competitiveness.”

The trade could be just the start of changes for Pittsburgh, which was sitting just two points above the bottom of the Eastern Conference as of Wednesday. The Penguins suffered a tough 7-1 loss to Dallas on Monday, where they gave up six goals in the first period.

Evgeni Malkin apologized to fans for the poor performance.

“I want to say sorry to the fans,” Malkin said. “They (watched) a really bad game. I hope we, together, find a good way, win tomorrow and start building the team better.”

Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas has been trying to balance keeping the team competitive while also planning for the future, especially with the aging stars Sidney Crosby, Malkin, and Kris Letang. The team’s slow start, including struggles from goaltender Tristan Jarry and a weak defense, has led to discussions about making bigger changes.

The Penguins, tied with Montreal for the worst goal differential in the league at minus-21, could make further moves as Dubas continues to build the team’s future by adding prospects, with sending Eller away for future picks being another step in that direction.

The Dallas Stars and Mason Marchment set franchise records on Monday night, as they dominated the Pittsburgh Penguins 7-1.

Dallas, which had only scored 39 goals in 13 games before Monday, took full advantage of Pittsburgh’s struggling defense. In their second win in three games, the Stars did most of their damage in the first period and controlled the game from there.

The six goals scored in the first period tied the franchise record for most goals in a single period. The record had previously been set by the Minnesota North Stars, who scored six goals in the first 20 minutes of a 7-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on March 16, 1971.

The franchise record for most goals in any period is eight, which was set by Minnesota in the second period of a 15-2 win over Winnipeg on Nov. 11, 1981.

The six goals scored on just 12 shots were also the most goals Pittsburgh had ever given up in the first period at home.

Five Dallas players finished with two or more points in the game, and Marchment (one goal and three assists) tied a team record with four points in one period. This feat had been achieved 10 times before, with Tyler Seguin and Valeri Nichushkin being the most recent to do it on Dec. 7, 2013, against Philadelphia.

Marchment scored his goal when Brendan Smith cleared the puck from the Stars’ zone while both teams were changing lines. The puck bounced off the boards behind the Penguins’ net and into the slot, where Marchment beat Matt Grzelcyk and Kris Letang to score past Joel Blomqvist, making it 3-0 and ending Blomqvist’s night with 9:44 left in the period.

Marchment, who had two goals and six assists in his first 12 games of the season, also assisted on goals by Matt Duchene, Miro Heiskanen, and Seguin. He added a fifth point, just one off his career high, when he and Duchene helped set up Wyatt Johnston’s goal in the third period.

Heiskanen scored twice, including an unassisted goal, marking his first two goals of the season and the fifth two-goal game of his career. Logan Stankoven also added a goal for Dallas.

Pittsburgh’s goalie, Alex Nedeljkovic, took over for Blomqvist after he allowed three goals on four shots. Nedeljkovic settled down and made 28 saves, but the Penguins lost for the third time in their last four games. Tristan Jarry, who was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday, was a healthy scratch for the game.

Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger, who had been pulled after giving up four goals in less than 30 minutes in a loss to Winnipeg on Saturday, bounced back with 20 saves on Monday. The only goal he allowed was a second-period score by Anthony Beauvillier.

Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny both scored during regulation and again in the shootout as the Philadelphia Flyers, who almost let a three-goal lead slip away, beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3 on Monday.

Erik Johnson also scored for the Flyers, while Samuel Ersson made 28 saves in goal. Michkov, who had been a healthy scratch in the Flyers’ last two games, finished with a goal and an assist before scoring the important goal in the shootout.

Jack Thompson, Mikael Granlund, and Barclay Goodrow scored for the Sharks, who had won five of their last seven games. Vitek Vanecek made 40 saves for San Jose.

In the shootout, both teams missed their first attempts. Then, Michkov pulled off a great backhand-to-forehand move to score. After Ersson stopped the Sharks’ next shooter, Konecny scored the winning goal, dragging the puck on his forehand and then flipping it under the crossbar.

The Flyers got off to a fast start, scoring twice in the first period. Johnson opened the scoring at 1:40 with his first goal of the season. Then, with just over four minutes left in the period, Konecny made it 2-0 with a power-play goal.

Emil Andrae passed to Michkov, who fed Konecny for a blast from the right circle that beat Vanecek.

Michkov made it 3-0 at 5:09 of the second period when he got behind the defense and slipped a shot past Vanecek. San Jose started to fight back later in the second period.

With about 4 1/2 minutes left, William Eklund’s pass deflected off Thompson’s skate and went past Ersson to get the Sharks on the board. Three minutes later, Eklund set up Granlund at the right faceoff dot, and Granlund fired a wrister that beat Ersson to make it 3-2.

The score stayed 3-2 until Goodrow tied it up with 2:24 left in the third period. Henry Thrun’s shot from the left point hit the right side of the net, where Goodrow was waiting to put it past Ersson.

San Jose started overtime with a two-minute 4-on-3 power play after Michkov was called for roughing at the end of regulation. Ersson made several key saves during the penalty kill.

Vanecek also came up with some big stops late in overtime, including saves on Andrae and Michkov, which sent the game to a shootout.

Mikael Backlund and Jonathan Huberdeau each scored in the second period, 36 seconds apart, and the Calgary Flames won 3-1 against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday.

Dustin Wolf was close to earning his first career shutout, making 29 saves, and also got his first NHL point with an assist. Kevin Rooney also scored, and Backlund finished with two points.

Trevor Moore scored for the Kings with 2:31 left in the game, while Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves.

Although the Kings had more shots and chances from the start of the game—taking more than 11 minutes to get their first shot on goal—the Flames didn’t score for almost 30 minutes.

Backlund finally got the Flames on the board at 10:42 of the second period after taking advantage of a turnover and firing a shot into the top corner for his fourth goal of the season.

Huberdeau made it 2-0 shortly after the next faceoff. Andrei Kuzmenko sent Huberdeau on a partial breakaway, and Huberdeau managed to score while holding off a check, putting in his sixth goal of the year. Wolf got an assist on the goal.

Moore got the Kings on the scoreboard late in the third period, putting in a shot that was reviewed to confirm it crossed the line, marking his third goal of the season.

Rooney sealed the win for the Flames with an empty-net goal, his first of the year, with 20 seconds remaining.

Wolf showed his skill early, stopping Kevin Fiala on a breakaway in the first period. He also denied Anze Kopitar after the Flames took their 2-0 lead and made a big save on Adrian Kempe early in the third when the Kings had a good scoring chance.

Earlier in the day, the Flames announced that forward Anthony Mantha would be out for the rest of the season due to knee surgery.

One way an NHL coach might try to get a player’s attention is by scratching him from the lineup, making him watch the game from high up in the press box.

That’s what Seattle Kraken coach Dan Bylsma did with forwards Oliver Bjorkstrand and Tye Kartye on November 5 at Colorado.

The strategy seemed to work, as Bjorkstrand scored a goal, and Kartye assisted on another in the Kraken’s 4-3 overtime win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday, ending a four-game losing streak. After a weekend off, the Kraken will face the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.

Bjorkstrand scored a hard-working goal early in the third period. Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill tried to make a pokecheck, but the puck bounced off Bjorkstrand as he charged to the net and deflected into the goal, giving the Kraken a 3-2 lead after they had been down 2-0.

“I thought his game, in particular, was a great bounce-back game for him,” Bylsma said. “He’s a talented, skilled player with a great shot and scores a lot of goals. His competition was at a great level for him to have success in the game.

And it’s not just the evidence of going to the net and scoring a dirty goal, but on the wall in the first period, at the faceoff (circle), also in the first period, the battle on the wall in the second period in front of our bench. It was great.”

Bjorkstrand, who admitted he needed to be better after being a healthy scratch, was happy to contribute to the win.

“Yeah, it was good,” he said. “I would have been ready in Colorado, but I was ready (Friday), kept it simple. I feel like I played well with the puck and was able to create some chances.”

After a strong start to the season, the Blue Jackets have lost their last five games (0-4-1). They lost 4-2 to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, with Ducks goalie John Gibson stopping 38 shots in his season debut after recovering from an emergency appendectomy in September.

Kirill Marchenko had a goal and an assist for Columbus, while Yegor Chinakhov also scored. Daniil Tarasov made 26 saves.

“It’s unacceptable,” said Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski, who was playing in his 500th NHL game. “Enough with the moral victories. We’ve played well enough in a lot of games this year to win, and we end up losing them, and that’s on us.”

“We have to look ourselves in the mirror and find a way to win hockey games. I don’t care if we outshoot them 50-20 or we get outshot 50-20. At the end of the day, we have to find a way to get points in this league and win hockey games, and we haven’t done it.”

The Blue Jackets have only scored nine goals during their losing streak. “Goal-scoring is funny. It goes in streaks,” said Columbus coach Dean Evason. “A few weeks back, we couldn’t miss, and the pucks were finding their way in, and we were getting some bounces.

Now it’s gone the other way a little bit, but there’s nothing we can do about it now except move forward and keep doing those things to get those opportunities.”

Both teams may have lineup changes for Tuesday’s game. The Kraken traded for forward Daniel Sprong, who scored 21 goals for them in 2022-23, from the Vancouver Canucks. The Blue Jackets claimed defenseman Dante Fabbro, a former first-round pick, off waivers from the Nashville Predators.

Samuel Girard scored 2:47 into overtime, giving the Colorado Avalanche a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators in Denver on Monday night.

The play started when Nashville defenseman Brady Skeji had the puck just inside the Colorado zone but lost his footing. Girard quickly took the puck, skated ahead of Skeji, and fired it past goalie Juuse Saros over his blocker to secure the win. It was Girard’s first goal of the season, and he also had an assist in the game.

Mikko Rantanen and Devon Toews also scored for the Avalanche, while Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves. Colorado has now won two games in a row.

Luke Evangelista and Colton Sissons scored for the Predators, and Saros stopped 29 shots in the loss.

Georgiev gave up an early goal for the second game in a row but was solid after that, keeping Nashville off the board for the next two periods. The Predators’ goal came just 1:45 into the game during a delayed penalty.

Juuso Parssinen took a shot from the point that Georgiev stopped, but Evangelista grabbed the rebound and scored for his second goal of the season.

The score remained 1-0 until the second period. Just four seconds after Nashville killed off a penalty to Zachary L’Heureux, Toews fired a shot from the point that deflected off a Predators stick and went past Saros at 4:32. It was Toews’ first goal of the season.

Colorado took the lead halfway through the second period when Joel Kiviranta passed the puck to Rantanen in the right circle. Rantanen’s one-timer beat Saros on the short side at 11:37. That was Rantanen’s ninth goal of the season and his second straight game with a goal.

Nashville tied it up early in the third period. Roman Josi stole the puck at the Colorado blue line, skated into the zone, and passed it to Sissons at the side of the net. Sissons slid the puck into the open net at 59 seconds to make it 2-2.

Jordan Staal, Eric Robinson, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi each scored a goal and added an assist to help the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-2 on Monday night in Las Vegas, handing the Golden Knights their first home loss of the season.

Tyson Jost and Jordan Martinook also scored for Carolina, which has now won 9 of its last 10 games. Pyotr Kochetkov made 30 saves in the win.

Jack Eichel had a goal and an assist, and Ivan Barbashev also scored for Vegas, which saw its franchise-record eight-game home win streak come to an end. Adin Hill stopped 17 of 21 shots before being replaced by Akira Schmid, who made 12 saves in his first game for the Golden Knights.

Carolina took the lead early at 4:24 of the first period when Robinson, positioned in front of the net, deflected Sean Walker’s shot through Hill’s pads for his fourth goal of the season.

Kotkaniemi made it 2-0 at 12:46 of the first when he scored on a rebound of his own shot after a three-on-two rush, marking his second goal of the season.

The Hurricanes increased their lead to 3-0 early in the second period when Staal picked up a turnover in the high slot and fired a one-timer off the crossbar for his second goal of the year, with the goal coming on a short-handed play.

A few minutes later, Jost made it 4-0 when a shot by Jaccob Slavin from the left point deflected off Jost’s leg and went inside the near post. That led Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy to replace Hill with Schmid.

Eichel pulled one back for Vegas at 6:11 of the third period, scoring his fifth goal of the season to make it 4-1.

Martinook sealed the win with an empty-net goal at 14:28 to put Carolina up 5-1. Barbashev scored a power-play goal with 13 seconds left in the game to make the final score 5-2.