The three-game sweep of the NHL starts in San Jose where the Sharks toppled the Colorado Avalanche, 6-1.
In a milestone, Joe Thornton picked up his 1,300th NHL point with two assists.
“I’ve played with a lot of good players,” Thornton said. “It’s a lot. I’ve played with a lot of good goal scorers in my career and a lot of good players. That’s how that happens.
“It’s just one of those things where you keep playing. You kind of get on a streak and you feel good and your line is feeling good. All of a sudden, it happens. The guys have been telling me how close I’ve been. You just go out and play and usually good things happen.”
Melker Karlsson , Tomas Hertl, Joe Pavelski, Joel Ward, Paul Martin and Dylan DeMelo all scored for the Sharks
“When you’re playing this good you don’t want a break,” Thornton said. “You just want to play every other day like we’ve been doing because you feel so good. We’ve been playing a lot of minutes. If the guys use the rest the right way we’ll be fine coming out of the break.”
Martin Jones made 21 saves and gave only the goal to Nathan MacKinnon in the third after the game was out of reach.
“It’s amazing,” Sharks assistant coach Bob Boughner said of Thornton’s continued strong play. “I played against Joe for a lot of years and he just doesn’t seem to get any older or slower or any worse. It’s almost he gets better with age. I think the guys feed off that.
“When Joe is on, he’s making plays like he’s making out there and playing as hard as he does away from the puck, that’s what impresses me the most is how hard he works. Enjoys the game every day. I think it’s very infectious for the whole team, especially the young guys.”
In the second big scoring game of the night, the Florida Panthers raked the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-1.
Aleksander Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Jussi Jokinen, Reilly Smith, and Alex Petrovic scored for the Panthers.
“Toronto was frustrating us, they played a tight-checking game,” coach Gerard Gallant told the team website. “After that we played hard and held our composure.
“We had a great weekend and we didn’t want a letdown.”
Nazem Kadri scored the lone Toronto goal.
“I thought we came out and played well,” Reimer said. “Obviously, I think they had some Grade A chances, and they were able to get them by me. Sometimes, that’s the way it goes, you know? We’ll get back on the horse [Wednesday] and get after it.”
The Leafs fell to 17-21-9 and play Wednesday in Tampa before the break.
“I thought we had things going good and our penalty kill was going good, and then Barkov walked right down the middle,” Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. “We didn’t do our job or what we’re supposed to do, what we talked about it in the meeting and the next thing you know, I thought they got going.”
In the third high-scoring game of the night, the Carolina Hurricanes got 26 saves from Eddie Lack in a 5-0 pasting of the Chicago Blackhawks.
“No, not really,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said when asked if the result was a surprise to him. “We just got off to a great start and stayed with it. When we get contributions through the lineup, we’re a good team. We’ve been a good team here for a while.”
Riley Nash had two goals for the Canes.
“We knew it was a big game, a measuring stick to see where we’re at,” Nash said. “We’re slowly but surely climbing up the standings. It gives us a little more confidence. We’re not going to win games like that every night, but to be able to do that against the Stanley Cup championship team is huge.”
Jeff Skinner, Joakim Nordstrom and John-Michael Liles added goals for the Canes.
“It was pretty evident right from the beginning that we were in a lot of trouble tonight,” Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said. “We lost every single puck battle, every single race. It was an ugly game across the board and nothing positive came out of it except that it’s over.”
Carolina improved to 23-20-8.
“We’ve done a good job hanging around to be in the mix,” Peters said. “Guys have got get away, recharge, refresh and get ready to make a push.”
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