Two games in the NHL Wednesday featured skills competitions including the Edmonton Oilers beating the Boston Bruins, 3-2, and the New Islanders downing the Rangers, 2-1.
In Edmonton, Anders Nilsson made 38 saves to help the Oilers get a win.
Matt Hendricks and Mark Letestu scored for Edmonton in regulation.
“We have talked a lot about the bottom six (forwards) trying to add a little bit of offense to help the big guns out,” Hendricks said. “We’ve kind of been a one-line punching 
monster right now, and you’re not going to win a lot of games when you’re only getting production from one of your top lines. We needed to chip in tonight, we needed to do it, we need to continue to do it, if not on a nightly basis, at least weekly.”
Jordan Eberle was the only skater to score in the shootout.
“It was nice to take the heat off the top line and chip in at a time when the team really needed it,” Letestu said. “It wasn’t like it was the sixth or fifth goal in a blowout; they were both big goals. I thought for the most part, we played a pretty solid game all the way through. We probably could have used a little more poise down the stretch there, giving up that late one, but the guys held the fort, and Anders came up big with three big saves in the shootout.”
Torey Krug and Zdeno Chara scored for Boston.
“We were average tonight; our skating game was there, but we didn’t play a real hard game tonight, and that’s what we need to do,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “We needed to play hard against this team and we chose to play a little bit more their type of game. They’re going up and down, there were plays being made, but there were also a lot of chances being traded off, and that’s not the way we play.”
In Brooklyn, the suddenly injury-hobbled New York Rangers visited the Islanders and managed the loser’s point in a 2-1 defeat.
Jaroslav Halak made 33 saves in the win and stopped all three Rangers shooters in the skills competition.
“Obviously the last shootout game was not great for me,” Halak said. “But I’m glad we got the win tonight and it was a huge two points. It’s always big against the divisional rivals.”
For the Rangers, Viktor Stalberg scored and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 36 shots in the loss.
“We had some real good looks,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “We had some good puck movement, good movement by our three forwards that were on the ice and [Boyle]. They got some good saves and some good blocked shots. For us that’s probably the game right there, as far as getting two points. We moved it around real well, but we weren’t able to score.”
John Tavares scored for the Isles in regulation.
“The PK has been great,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. “I’m going to go into detail on who jumped. One too many this year. Guys have to be more focused and know what the situation is and we’ve got to get better at our changes, that’s for sure. But the PK not only in overtime but throughout the game, especially the couple [power plays] that they had, I thought we did an excellent job.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.