Joe Pavelski – Photo by Jack Lima
The sweep of the NHL from Monday night starts in San Jose where the Sharks were quiet on trade deadline day but came out big in a 6-2 thrashing of the Montreal Canadiens.
Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski (two goals) and Brent Burns had multi-point games.
“I love our group,” Thornton said. “We have a great group, and I’m really excited going forward here.”
Martin Jones picked up his 31st win of the year with 21 saves.
“We’re trying to hunt down the teams above us and push Anaheim and L.A. here to the finish,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said.
The Sharks are just four points back of the Los Angeles Kings and only two points back of the Anaheim Ducks.
‘I think our defensive squad really had a tough time tonight,” Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. “We got dominated by a good hockey team.”
Brendan Gallagher and Torrey Mitchell scored the Habs in the loss.
“I don’t think we can be happy enough with our effort,” Gallagher said. “We allowed them to have too much time and space, and good players are going to take advantage of it. There’s things we can control every game and our compete level and battle level wasn’t where it needed to be.”
In Dallas, Pavel Datsyuk scored on the power play mid way through extra time to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 3-2 win over the Stars.
Jimmy Howard – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Pavel is an elite, elite player,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “I don’t care how old he is, he’s an elite player in the League, one of the best in the League still today. He’s unbelievably competitive, he wins pucks and he plays such a complete game. He’s a special player.”
Andreas Athanasiou scored two goals in regulation for the Wings.
“He doesn’t have speed; he has lightning,” Datsyuk said in describing Athanasiou’s abilities.
Jimmy Howard made 39 saves for the win.
“It was good,” Howard said. “They’re a highly skilled team throughout their lineup, and we were able to find a way to get the job done.”
Vernon Fiddler scored for Dallas with 91 seconds left in regulation to force the extra session.
“We (the fourth line) get a little bit of opportunity to play,” Fiddler said. “We gave up one early, and we talked we wanted to get one back and we got one back right away. Obviously, we got an opportunity to play at the end and got a good bounce and got rewarded. It’s been a couple tough months offensively for me, but you just try to work your hardest every night and hopefully get rewarded.”
Colton Sceviour also scored for the Stars.
“It’s obviously tough when you’ve played some good hockey and haven’t fully gotten the results,” Sceviour said. “Our game as a team has been better the last two nights, and we’ve been in them. We’ve just now got to be comfortable in those games and find a way to win them.”
Antti Niemi made 30 saves in the loss.
“You’ve got to believe that if you’re going to keep playing that way, you’re going to put it in the back of the net,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. “I liked the way our team competed, liked the way they skated, didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Managed the puck pretty well most of the game. That’s a game you should win.”
In New York, Derek Stepan scored a shorthanded goal with just under three minutes left in regulation to help the Rangers edge the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1.
“Originally I was going to shoot it,” Stepan said. “I took a look up and took my chances trying to beat him to the back pipe.”
Derek Stepan – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Stepan beat Joonas Korpisalo on a fake to the short side then went wide.
Eric Staal made his debut with the Rangers after being acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes.
“Well, it’s a lot of emotion, obviously, from the moment the trade happened, but it’s been positive since that moment,” Staal said. “It’s been a lot of fun coming here and joining this group. It’s a great group of guys that made me feel real welcome right off the bat. It feels nice to get the win. That’s what we’re focused on here as a group.”
Mats Zuccarello‘ scored for the Rangers on a deflection off Korpisalo’s stick on a shot from behind the goal line.
“We got good looks,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “Obviously, we made that mistake there on that goal; that’s going to happen sometimes. But Antti played a real strong game for us. It was obviously an emotional day for a lot of our players today, but at the end of the day, we got two points, and that’s what counts.”
Cam Atkinson scored for the Jackets on a breakaway in the third to tie at one all.
Antti Raanta got the win for the Rangers on 26 saves including a final second save that preserved the win.
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