NHL daily sweep – 8 December 2015

The three-game sweep from Monday night in the NHL starts in Boston where the Bruins hosted the Nashville Predators.

Trailing 2-1 midway through the second period, the Preds got a goal from Roman Josi (his second of the game) to tie the game and Viktor Arvidsson scored the winner at 15:04 of the third to send the Preds to a 3-2 win.

“We thought we played some really good games lately and kind of found a way to lose it,” Josi said. “And tonight, we found a way to win that game and I thought our discipline NHL Daily Sweep 3was way better in the second half of that game. We didn’t take any penalties any more. And their power play’s dangerous. That’s kind of how we lost the game in Detroit, giving them too many opportunities on the power play. And we stayed disciplined tonight. So it was a good win for us.”

Carter Hutton made 15 saves as the Bruins managed just 17 shots on goal, a season low.

“You just kind of stay with it, stay focused and it just goes on top of the fact of not playing that often. Just keeping your mind in it because it might be that one key save,” Hutton said. “I can only control the game that they throw at me. Tonight we were able to get one and hang on for the win.”

Nashville scored on two of their seven power plays.

“I think to overcome that stuff, you’ve got to be smarter, and I think we took a lot of penalties that just kind of gave them momentum, and then over-taxed a lot of our players,” Boston coach Claude Julien said. “So I think we needed to be smarter in that area.”

In Denver, John Mitchell scored 3:35 into extra time to send the Colorado Avalanche to a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Wild.

“[Matt Duchene] brought a guy up to him, he kind of bit on him and passed it down low,” Mitchell said. “I just tried to get to the middle of the ice as quick as I could and shoot it high glove.”

Semyon Varlamov made 19 saves in the win.

“They’ve had our number for a little while here,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t want to let them get back in the game and even get the game to overtime. [Varlamov] played great for us; kudos to him. He was awesome.”

Zach Parise scored in regulation for the Wild and Darcy Kuemper had 18 saves in the loss.

“He made a good save on me on that first whack and the rebound, luckily it stayed right there,” Parise said. “So I was able to get the second by him.”

Tyson Barrie staked the Avs to a 1-0 lead in the second period.

“They played well positionally,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “That’s their game right now. They’re working their neutral zone forecheck and they’ve got numbers back. They had the same structure last game, but we had a quicker attack, quick ups before they got set into position, quick to take ice when ice is available, whereas tonight we let the game slow down.”

In Vancouver, Radim Vrbata scored a hat trick to lead the Canucks to a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

“It always helps when on your first or second shift you get an open net like that,” Vrbata said. “Then you get a tip there and it seems like everything’s falling in place.”

That first goal came as Sabres goalie Linus Ullmark could not get back to the crease after squaring up to a shooter in the right circle.

“It is a big relief (first hat trick as a Canuck), something positive you want to build off,” Vrbata said. “That hasn’t happened much this year. This can help you going forward, for me individually and as a group for everybody.”

Ryan Miller made 32 saves in the win.

“We needed it,” Vrbata said, “to feel a little better about ourselves.”

Henrik Sedin and Brandon Prust scored for the Canucks.

Buffalo got goals from Brian Gionta and Sam Reinhart.

“We want better within this room and we know we are capable of that, so that’s why it’s so disappointing,” Gionta said. “We gotta find ways not to shoot ourselves in the foot and right now we’re doing that, whether it’s too many men on the ice or a bad penalty at a bad time, not getting power play momentum, things like that are hurting us.”

The Sabres were unable to get much traction in the game after giving up six power plays to the Canucks who scored once.

“We end up taking too many penalties,” Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said. “They were 1-for-6 in the game but were real dominant with their power play and we gave them too many opportunities to do it. They got momentum and carried the play because of it.”

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