The three-game sweep of the NHL from Sunday starts in Sunrise, where the ageless one, Jaromir Jagr, scored once and added an assist in the Florida Panthers’ 4-3 win over the Lightning.
“I don’t really look right now to the goals,” Jagr said while wearing the Army jacket given to the Panthers player of the game. “My goal is different. I came here to help this team try to make the playoffs or make it as close as possible. It’s like a playoff for us already. We’ve got 19 games to go, and it’s going to be exciting. Hopefully we can play the same way we did tonight or yesterday and see what happens.”
Jagr’s goal was the 717th of his career; he is now tied with Phil Esposito for fifth on the NHL’s all-time list.
“I watched many times this year the series between the Russians and Canada in 1972 and he was a dominating player there,” Jagr said. “After I watched the tapes, I respect him a lot more because he turned the series around. He was the guy. In that time, he was the best in the world. It’s a big honor for me to tie him.”
Brad Boyes, Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad also scored for Florida.
“It was a lot of fun,” Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said. “The guys are going hard to the net. We got the first goal on a real nice play. [Jagr] gets his first goal with us. Yesterday we had an enormous amount of chances, and today there were some good opportunities and we cashed in with four goals.”
Fun but tense battle with the Lightning who are looking at the top spot in the eastern conference as a prize.
Al Montoya got the start in the Panthers’ net and made 20 saves for the win.
“It’s huge,” Montoya said. “The team was buzzing after that first period. I thought we had the momentum and in the second we were all over them, so I knew if you make a save here, this is huge. Hats off to the guys, because they responded well. It’s a big save, but at the same time they came out and got a couple of more goals, which gives the team confidence.”
In Washington, the Capitals got 32 saves from Braden Holtby and Alex Ovechkin had two goals and three points in a 4-0 shutout of the hapless Toronto Maple Leafs.
Braden Holtby blanked Leafs, 4-0 – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The Caps were on a three-game losing streak and needed the win to keep pace in the Metropolitan Division and head coach Barry Trotz was looking for a response from his team and leadership.
“That’s the guy that gets us off to a [good] start,” Trotz said of Ovechkin. “[He] got us off to a great start, first shift, scores. I thought our first period, the [Maple Leafs] had some really good looks. And Holtby was really good for us. I thought he was sort of the difference maker and we got better as the game went on.”
Marcus Johansson and Joel Ward also chipped in goals for the Caps.
James Reimer made 28 saves in the loss, their 16th straight road loss.
“They’re getting chances, they’re not going in,” Maple Leafs coach Peter Horachek said. “They’ve got to bear down and get the chances. They’ve got to finish their chances. They’ve got to be more willing to get on the inside, more willing to get in front of the net, stay there and get second opportunities. It’s not a secret that when you’re trying to score goals you’ve got to get on the inside.”
Ovechkin scored the first two goals for the Caps including the first at 35 seconds of the first period.
“It’s always important to have that kind of start, get the lead right away, take the pressure off,” Ovechkin said. “That’s what I was saying, I think a couple games we don’t have that kind of start, that kind of jump. It doesn’t matter if it’s [a] goal, you just play in the zone, 30, 40 seconds, make a big [play].”
In Vancouver, the game between the Canucks and the St Louis Blues was one of streaks as the Blues scored twice for a 2-0 lead followed by the Canucks’ five straight for a 5-2 lead only to see the Blues reply with three third period goals to tie it at five all forcing extra time.
In overtime, the Blues hit two posts but there was no scoring.
In the end, the skills competition settled this one with Chris Higgins beating the Blues’ Jake Allen for the 6-5 game-winner for Vancouver.
“A lesser team would have folded it up,” Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock said, “but we came back and pounded on it hard in the third period and then should have won it in overtime with the two we drilled by him and hit the post. We played a whale of a hockey game. We did a heck of a job.”
The game featured a goalie carousel in the Blues net when Hitchcock replaced Allen in the third period with Brian Elliott only to send Allen back in after Elliot yielded a goal to Nick Bonino.
“I was thinking, ‘Now all I need to do is get him hurt,'” Hitchcock said. “I put (Elliott) in because I thought we had a great spirit going into the third period and we had a chance to win a hockey game.”
The Blues were thankful for the point in a game in which they had been outplayed for major parts.
“Our leaders led and then when things were not going well they pulled more guys into the fight,” Hitchcock said. “They didn’t let people leave the battlefield, which was really impressive. They kept playing and more guys got dragged in and we seemed to get a second wind.”
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