The two-game sweep of the NHL schedule from Wednesday starts in Washington, DC where Carl Hagelin, J.T. Miller and Martin St. Louis scored for the New York Rangers and Cam Talbot made 28 saves for a 3-1 win over the Capitals.
Martin St Louis scored off 2-on-0 rush to seal win for Rangers in DC – file photo by Jack Lima
“Our work [ethic] has been there,” St. Louis said. “I think we’re getting some great plays from different lines at good times, and that’s how you keep winning games. It’s never the same guys. I think that’s the reason why we’ve got some consistent success.”
St Louis broke out of an eight-game drought.
The Caps are in the fourth spot in the division and are now looking over their shoulder at the Boston Bruins who are just four points back.
“I don’t look at it as a discouraging loss at all,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “I look at it as here’s a team that’s … I think they’re tied for the first overall [spot] in the National Hockey League. I don’t think we should be shy of them. I respect that they’re a very good team and I thought we played them pretty even up. We did make some mistakes, and they did capitalize on a couple things, but it definitely wasn’t a one-sided game.
“We learned some things today. They probably learned some things about us, but we learned a lot about them and a lot about ourselves. We’ve got to go a couple more times at each other, so I’m sure it’ll start to heat up.”
The credit for the win belonged with Talbot who made several highlight reel saves in the third.
“[Talbot] made some unreal saves,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “He made four brilliant saves that were Grade A and kept us right there, and we were able to [pull] it off.”
The offense was off speed for the Rangers and their ability to keep the tempo of the match high.
“You want to play at a high tempo,” Rangers defenseman Marc Staal said. “You want to play in their end, but you don’t want to take any unnecessary risks, and I thought we did a pretty good job of keeping them to the outside.
“A lot of their shots were from the point or from the wing. [Washington] had a few good chances at the end in tight, but that’s going to happen, and [Talbot] made some big saves for us. In that type of game, in a back-to-back, that’s what you need from your goalie, and he delivered.”
In Toronto, the Maple Leafs pulled out a shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres. Tyler Bozak forced extra time with a late goal and then nailed the game-winner in the shootout.
“Obviously it’s nice,” Bozak said. “The wins are hard to come by right now, so it feels good to get one before heading out on our Canadian road trip. Hopefully we can carry this on and get a couple of wins on the trip.”
But this was a sloppy, poorly-played game that saw the Leafs turn pucks over in their own zone and play as dreadfully on defense as any team could play. Their only advantage was playing the woeful Sabres.
Jonathan Bernier earned his 20th win of the despite the porous defense in front of him.
“Obviously you want to get up in the 30s and 40s in wins; it is nice to get my 20th,” Bernier said. “We battled hard in the third period and found a way to win. In the second period we turned the puck over way too many times and we couldn’t get in their zone and get cycling zone time. In the third we worked harder and got the puck in deep.”
To have 20 wins on a team as bad as the Leafs is saying something of the Bernier’s abilities in net.
“We were pretty embarrassed with the way we were playing in the first two periods,” Bozak said. “We said between periods we had to calm down and play our best period and see what happens.”
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