The sweep of the NHL schedule form Saturday starts in Detroit where the visiting Boston Bruins got a boost from the return of Tuukka Rask who made 24 saves in a 1-0 win over the Red Wings.
The loss cooled off a Detroit who had won six straight.
“Having Tuukka back there is huge, because you know he’s going to keep you in the game,” Boston’s Dominic Moore said. “He gives you the confidence to play your game.”
Tim Schaller was the game’s lone goal scorer.
Detroit had been clicking well but their power play went scoreless in four tries.
“Everything was wrong,” Henrik Zetterberg said. “We couldn’t get the puck into the zone, we couldn’t break out of our end, we didn’t win faceoffs, we didn’t get pucks on net. I could go on.”
Jimmy Howard got the start for Detroit and made 35 saves in the loss.
“They were hungrier than we were all over the ice,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said.
In St Paul, Devan Dubnyk picked up his third straight shutout as the Wild beat the Dallas Stars 4-0 on 29 saves.
“It’s fun,” Dubnyk said. “It’s definitely an accomplishment to be proud of for all of us. You don’t get shutouts by yourself. You get shutouts with guys doing a lot of good stuff in front of me and allowing me to make reads, great sticks and blocks, and it all adds up, so it’s something to enjoy, but most of that game tonight until the third period was one shot, so you can’t be thinking too much about the shutouts.”
AHL call-up Tyler Graovac scored his first NHL goal and Eric Staal, Nino Niederreiter and Mikael Granlund also scored for Minnesota.
“Your first NHL goal is something I’ve dreamed of, a short-term goal I’ve wanted for so long,” Graovac said . “I know I had a lot of family watching that game. It’s not just me scoring that goal. It’s my aunts, uncles, grandmother, my parents back home. It’s just something very special for all of us that we can all enjoy.”
Dallas has been riddled with injuries but played well for most of the game.
“For two periods we totally outworked them, we weren’t in our own end,” Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said. “I thought that part of the game our puck movement was good, a few plays from the point where we don’t get pucks through that maybe hurt us. I [have to] go around and be pretty fussy if I want to pick apart those first two periods.
“[We] dominated the second period, had some pucks go off some posts. Their goaltender is seeing the puck pretty well right now. We didn’t have a lot of puck luck when it came to being around the net.”
On a night of shutouts, the Buffalo Sabres’ Anders Nilsson made 33 saves in a 3-0 win over the Florida Panthers.
He had to stop Vincent Trocheck on a penalty shot with less than a minute left in regulation to preserve the goose egg.
“Never seen a [shutout] like that,” Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said. “Trocheck gets the breakaway … with a minute left and then the penalty shot. [Nilsson] was going to earn the shutout with a stop. I don’t know if he got a piece of the penalty shot or he just missed, but he earned it with that one.”
Johan Larsson, Kyle Okposo and Sam Reinhart scored for the Sabres.
“I think the most important thing is the two points we got tonight,” Nilsson said. “That’s huge for us and it means a lot for our confidence and that’s something to build on and hopefully we can continue to play the way we did tonight.”
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