The sweep of the NHL from Sunday covers two games including the Edmonton Oilers’ 2-1 overtime win over the Vancouver Canucks on a goal from Lauri Korpikoski.
“It’s fun when you have the puck, but not so much when you don’t,” Korpikoski said.
He got just enough on the shot to beat Ryan Miller as the puck just made it over the line.
“They had some chances before in that shift,” Korpikoski said. “Andrej made a nice play winning that wall battle and set me up for a breakaway. It kind of trickled through his five-hole.”
The Oilers started Anders Nilsson in net and he stopped 33 for the win.
But it was Korpikoski who garnered the praise of his head coach.
“Trust,” Todd McLellan said when asked what Korpikoski brings. “When you are behind the bench and you look down, there are guys you trust a little bit more than others for different reasons. Lauri for me is bringing trust. You can play him in all situations. He’s not perfect, but he tries to play the right way all the time, and for him to get rewarded tonight was a nice thing.”
The other game in the sweep was also a 2-1 overtime affair with the New Jersey Devils taking the win over the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden.
Lee Stempniak scored in the 3-on-3 overtime to give the Devils head coach John Hynes his first win.
“It’s been, what, five games now to get the first win, so really just happy for him,” Stempniak said. “He deserves it, and for our group too it’s really important.”
The Devils had lost three in regulation and one in a shootout before Sunday.
“It feels great,” Hynes said. “Really just happy for the team. We have gone through a lot of changes and I thought we were up and down in some of our first games, but I really credit the players’ attitude every day. They’ve worked to get better. We feel we continue to do that. It’s just gratifying that for our guys we were able to get a win for the hard work.”
For the Rangers, it was another frustrating effort on offense with none of the highly paid forwards, like Rick Nash, contributing on the offense.
“We’ve got by my estimation one player that’s on top of his game,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said, “and that’s Henrik Lundqvist.”
Energy and execution have been blamed for the lack of offense. Perhaps it’s just lack of interest as the Rangers go through the paces of 60 or so minutes of game time.
“If I had the answer I would have fixed it by now,” Vigneault said. “I’m sure the players have their theory. The good thing is we’ve got an opportunity [Monday] to try and put a 60-minute game together.”
They need to find something quick because the San Jose Sharks are in town Monday night.
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