The three-game sweep of the NHL starts in Toronto where the Maple Leafs have fallen on hard times again and lost, 4-1, top the Chicago Blackhawks Friday night.
Patrick Kane had a hat trick and assist in the win; it was his first regular season HL hat trick.
“I have had a couple of important ones in the playoffs and you probably wouldn’t trade them for anything,” Kane said. “It is nice to get that first one in the regular season and get it out of the way so to speak. Tonight, I was the beneficiary of some great plays by my teammates.”
The feat came as a surprise to Chicago coach Joel Quenneville.
“It might be my fault that he never had a hat trick because we don’t play him much when we get leads like that,” Quenneville said. “I had no clue it was his first hat trick. I would have bet he had more than a handful. He nearly had one the other night but he missed the empty net so it was nice to see him come back with one tonight.”
Artemi Panarin picked up the fourth Hawks goal.
“Our guys are playing well,” Quenneville said. “I think the consistency in our lineup has been more noticeable. We’re getting more contribution across all four lines. Earlier on it was basically a one-line team and now we’re seeing everybody contribute. Our defense has been balanced and our goaltending has been rock solid. I like the consistency right now.”
Morgan Rielly scored the lone Leafs goal.
James Reimer had 25 saves in the loss.
“Obviously the first thing you do is say James is hurt,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “So what if he’s hurt. Let’s find a way to score goals. You have got to beat the other team to three to win in this league and we didn’t do that tonight. Any way you look at it we had to get two or three to win tonight and we didn’t do that. We need more out of our bottom six for sure. Our top guys have to score, but our bottom six have to be better than this.”
In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2, in overtime.
Bo Horvat picked up the game-winner for Vancouver.
“Three weeks ago, I didn’t think I was going to score another goal this year,” Horvat said.
“To get on a streak in the New Year, it helps my confidence a lot,” he said. “You enjoy coming to the rink. You enjoy the next shift, the next period, everything. It lifts you. It’s something I wasn’t feeling at the beginning of the year. My confidence was pretty shot.”
Horvat is on a tear for Vancouver and has six goals and nine points in the last six games.
“He just seemed to flourish,” Vancouver coach Willie Desjardins said. “When there’s more given to him, he seemed to find his game. He’s been good the last six, not just offensively but defensively.”
Kris Versteeg and John-Michael Liles scored for the Canes.
“I’m glad we got the point,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “We had really good looks through the last 40 minutes. We had some skilled players with the puck in good spots. I’m glad we stuck with it and were able to get a point on a night when we didn’t play a complete game.”
In Buffalo, the Boston Bruins got out of a funk at the expense of the Sabres in a 4-1 win.
Ryan Spooner had a goal and two assists on the night for Boston and Zdeno Chara scored his sixth of the year just 29 seconds into the third period.
“That was a big game for us,” Chara said. “We started the road trip well, then we lost some games due to not playing 60-minute games, so we knew that tonight’s game was going to be a big game for us. We wanted to finish strong, and especially improve our third period, and that’s what we did. We were able to score goals, maintain the same play, be aggressive on pucks and kept up the high pace. So that’s pretty much why we got rewarded and we got two points.”
Jonas Gustavsson made 33 saves for the Bruins in a game they needed to win. The strong third period effort was a big difference from the previous losses where they lost leads in the final frame.
“Even in those last two games, it’s not that we didn’t skate or we didn’t try to make it happen,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “I think it’s the mistakes that we made in the third periods that really ended up costing us. I didn’t think we played on our heels, but we needed to be better with our decision-making and tonight we played well.”
David Legwand was the lone Sabres goal scorer and gave Buffalo an early 1-0 lead.
“They kept it tight,” Sabres captain Brian Gionta said. “They blocked a lot. They kind of kept us to the outside. Anything that did get through was back on the outside. … We’ve got to take advantage of those. It’s part of the game. It makes or breaks games.”
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