The start of the three-game sweep of the NHL schedule from Tuesday night is in Vancouver where Eddie Lack made 21 saves to backstop the Canucks to a 3-2 win over the New York Islanders.
Three Canucks players broke long goal droughts in the win including Nick Bonino, Ryan Stanton and Linden Vey.
“Every team that’s good in this League has some secondary scoring,” Stanton said. “Bonino got out of a slump, Vey got one and probably the least likely guy to get one, me, got one. It was nice and it felt so much better in a win.”
New York got goals from Mikhail Grabovski and Matt Martin.
“The execution just wasn’t really where it needed to be,” said Islanders captain John Tavares, who wasn’t credited with any shot attempts. “We competed hard but just have to be smarter with the puck and it cost us at times and it slowed us down.”
The loss was the second straight for the Isles who lost an ugly effort to the Edmonton Oilers to start the current road trip.
“To me, we played a pretty good hockey game but you can’t manage the puck like that and expect to win,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. “Turnovers led to the outcome of the game.”
In Glendale, the visiting St Louis Blues routed the Coyotes, 6-0, behind fur goals from David Backes. T.J. Oshie added three assists on the night.
“Even after the first (period), I said, ‘[Backes] is going to be getting a couple tonight,'” said Oshie, who had assists on three of Backes’ four goals to give him seven points in the past two games. “He’s been playing really hard and doing a lot of the grunt work for me and [Alexander Steen] on the end of the scoresheet. Tonight was his night. We were feeding him, and he was putting it in the back of the net.”
Brian Elliott stopped 23 for the second shutout of the year.
“We didn’t play a perfect game, but it might have been the best 60 minutes of our season so far,” Backes said. “All four lines. All three sets of defensemen. And Brian Elliott was fantastic in goal. The steps we’re building, first in San Jose and then here tonight, if we continue to bring that, we’ll continue to have a lot of success.”
Mike Smith took the loss stopping 33 of 39 shots on the night.
“We challenged our group to have the ability to play in a game like that and we didn’t fare very well,” Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. “After they got that fourth [goal] on a poor mistake by us, it would have been easy to take [Smith] out. But the shots were 32-14. That’s not a goaltender problem; that’s a people-in-front-of-them problem.
“To take the goaltender out in that situation, you’re letting a lot of guys off the hook, and we need more guys on the hook in that room. We weren’t even close in that game. Let’s be honest, that’s not a goaltender issue, that’s a look-in-the-mirror issue. … That’s garbage.”
In Chicago, the Blackhawks took 54 shots in the game and nary a one made it past Semyon Varlamov who picked up a 2-0 win for the Colorado Avalanche.
For Colorado and Varlamov, it was just another game with the Hawks against whom the Avs goalie has great and consistent success.
“It was pretty déjà vu for sure,” said Colorado forward Nathan MacKinnon, who scored a goal and assist. “[Varlamov] was standing on his head. It’s funny how it works. [He] seems to love playing in this building and playing against Chicago in general. They fire everything at the net. They just put all the pucks in the world on net and I think that helps [him] get hot. At the same time, the best defense is when we have the puck ourselves and create more, but we can’t complain. We got the two points and lately those haven’t been easy to come by.”
All of the scoring was completed in a 24-second stretch of the first period from the 53-second mark to 1:17. MacKinnon and Maxime Talbot scored all the Avs would need.
“Obviously [Varlamov] was the story of the game,” Colorado coach Patrick Roy said. “He was outstanding out there and made some really good saves. One thing’s for sure, he could not lose his focus. He had plenty of work out there, but [Varlamov] is one of our best players and if we want to have a chance to get back in the [Stanley Cup Playoff] picture, it’s got to start from him.”
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