The three-game sweep of the NHL starts in Vancouver, where Ryan Miller stopped 20 shots in getting a 5-2 win over the hapless Buffalo Sabres.
“I’m not going to lie, it was a little bit weird looking down the ice and seeing that jersey,” 
said Miller, who was picked in the fifth round (No. 138) in the 1999 NHL Draft by Buffalo and played parts of his first 11 seasons there before being traded to the St. Louis Blues late last season and signing in Vancouver as a free agent last summer. “But it just turns into a hockey game and you want to win, you want to compete.”
Chris Stewart scored two power play goals for the Sabres in the loss. The Sabres have lost 14 straight games; all have been in regulation.
“It stings for sure,” Stewart said. “It’s disgusting if you think about it. It’s not from a lack of effort. Teams kick when you’re down and they’re not going to take it easy on you. No one wants to be the team that gives up that losing streak to you.”
The game featured the return to the NHL of Matt Hackett, in the Sabres pipes as stopped 33 shots on the night.
He was returning from major knee reconstructive surgery.
“When I felt that pop, as a goalie you think your career could be done,” Hackett said. “So I was kind of scared.”
“Honestly I have been looking up to [Miller] since I was a kid,” said Hackett, who got the start after No. 1 goaltender Jhonas Enroth played against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday. “I think [Miller] is one of the best goalies I’ve ever seen, so I was pretty nervous to face him. But not so much the knee, I wasn’t worried about that. I know physically it’s there. It’s not at any risk of breaking again.”
In Denver, the Avalanche played a near perfect game as they shutout the Nashville Predators, 3-0.
“That was our most complete game of the season,” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. “We played 60 minutes. From behind the bench it was fun to watch.”
Semyon Varlamov made 23 saves for the win over a tough Predators team.
“I felt pretty good today,” said Varlamov, who made 35 saves Tuesday in the Avalanche’s 4-3 overtime loss in Nashville. “We had two days between the games, and that helped a lot. I wasn’t happy with my game three nights ago, a couple of bad goals I gave up. I had a meeting with my goalie coach (Francois Allaire) and we were talking about my game, and he reminded me of a couple of good things.”
While the Avs played well, it was the Predators who played off their game for 60 minutes.
“He made some saves, but we could have done a better job getting traffic in front of him,” Preds head coach Peter Laviolette said.
In Raleigh, the Blues’ Kevin Shattenkirk scored the only goal in the talent portion of the game between the Carolina Hurricanes and St Louis, to give the Blues a 3-2 win.
“This was a big game to win,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We played back to back, and our record was only two games over .500 on the road (11-9-2). To start off the second half of the season with a big road win is important, so they deserve a lot of credit.”
The Blues are 9-0-1 in their past 10 games.
The Blues took a 2-0 lead in the first but goals from Justin Faulk and Ryan Murphy tied the game by the second period.
“They just woke up, to be honest,” Shattenkirk said. “They came with a much harder game and much better push. That was the team we expected to see.”
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