The sweep of the NHL schedule from Tuesday starts in St Louis, where the Blues defeated the Dallas Stars, 2-1, in extra time.
Kevin Shattenkirk scored a power play goal 1:11 into the extra session to get the two points for the Blues.
“That play at the end there, I knew [Steen] was going to go to [Stastny] and go through,” Shattenkirk said. “I just felt like there was that room over the top. Sure enough, [Stastny] made a great play and found it.”
The game featured near complete frustration for both teams on the power play; they were 1-for-12 with the extra man.
Jaden Schwartz scored in regulation for the Blues.
“I think we’re trusting our work and it shows up on [penalty kill], it shows up in 5-on-5,” St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. “When you trust your work, whether it’s 1-0 or 3-0, you feel comfortable. I think that’s what’s happened right now. We have people demanding a lot of themselves. We have more to give, especially up front; we have some people who have to get up to speed up front, but what we’re doing as a group is trusting our work, and that’s allowing us to stay really competitive in the games right now.”
Brian Elliott made 17 saves for the win.
“I think when you see a game like that, you see that it was two teams that played sound defensively,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. “They did their job in the defensive zone. Overall, it was two good teams going at it.”
Mattias Janmark was the lone scorer for the Stars.
“He’s surprised us from Day One and he continues to surprise us,” Ruff said of Janmark. “He’s played very well and he put himself in the right spot and put it in.”
In Ottawa, the Senators got 38 saves from Craig Anderson in a 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres in the skills competition.
Bobby Ryan scored his sixth shootout goal of the year in eight attempts to lift the Sens to the win.
“Right now, 1-on-1 situations, I’m pretty comfortable,” Ryan said
Ryan Dzingel scored for the Senators in regulation.
“Every win we get from here on out is going to have to be a rallying point for us, or whatever it might be,” Ryan said. “The fact that we have to scoreboard watch at this time makes it a little tougher. But if we take care of home ice, find a way to win some games on the road, we’re never out of it.”
Matt Moulson scored for Buffalo in regulation, his first goal since Nov 1.
“It’s great to see him get rewarded,” Buffalo’s Jack Eichel said. “I was just happy he scored. It’s been a while. He’s been in a little bit of a slump and it seems like everybody is jumping on him and giving him a hard time. People got through things like this. He’s been doing a lot of great things. I’ve really enjoyed playing with him and it’s good to see him get rewarded.”
The Sabres played without Evander Kane who was suspended one game for missing practice Monday.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In Raleigh, the Hurricanes edged the Winnipeg Jets Tuesday, 2-1.
Jordan Staal and Riley Nash scored power play goals for the Canes.
“Winning the special teams battle is always a good thing,” Staal said. “You’re definitely always in the game if you win it. The penalty kill did a good job and the power play had a couple big goals.”
Staal has 6 goals and 19 points in his last 17 games.
“He’s playing very, very well,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “I don’t know who’s playing better in the League. He’s playing valuable minutes, big minutes, and he’s coming through.”
Eddie Lack made 19 saves for the Carolina win.
Blake Wheeler scored for the Jets who had four shots on goal in each of the first two periods.
Jets coach Paul Maurice was clearly frustrated after the game with his. Asked about his intermission messages to the team making any difference in the third period he was brusque in his reply.
“It didn’t make a difference before the game either,” Maurice said. “It’s the same message.”
The lack of energy from a club not clearly out of the playoff race will re-energize the trade rumors in Winnipeg.
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