NHL Daily Sweep – 8 February 2015

The sweep of the NHL from Sunday starts in Montreal where the Canadiens road the strong goaltending of Ben Scrivens to a 2-1 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Sven Andrighetto scored the only goal in the five-round shootout for the Habs win.

Scrivens made 34 saves for the win, his second straight.

“I think the momentum this weekend started early in the game against Edmonton,” Montreal captain Max Pacioretty said. “[Scrivens] made two huge saves against, I think it was both times on [Jordan] Eberle 1-on-0 in front of the net, and I think that kind of set the tempo for him and for us this weekend. So those four points are big, but a lot of that is because of the way he played.” NHL Daily Sweep 3

Pacioretty scored the only regulation goal for the Canadiens in the second period.

“[Saturday], we were pretty much lights-out,” Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban said. “I thought we played pretty consistent throughout 60 minutes from top to bottom. I think today, the first period, we were turning pucks over and we weren’t playing the game we wanted to play.”

Cam Ward was nearly as good as Scrivens making 33 saves in the loss.

“[Ward] was excellent,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “Both goaltenders were very good, made some big saves, and both goaltenders were very good in the shootout also.”

Jeff Skinner scored the Canes regulation goal.

“We had a lot of good looks,” Eric Staal said. “We like the way we playing for the most part through the first, second, the third was pretty even both ways, but we had a lot of great chances, the power play, obviously, some really good looks that you want to see them fall, but right now they’re not, especially for me. It’s been tough trying to scrape some confidence. I’m going to need one off my behind or something, and then go from there, but we’ll take the point and we’ll be ready next game.”

In Brooklyn, the New York Islanders too some recent frustration out on the Edmonton Oilers in a crushing 8-1 win.

Kyle Okposo had a hat trick and four points and John Tavares, Johnny Boychuk, Nikolay Kulemin, Josh Bailey, and Cal Clutterbuck also scored for the Isles.

Thomas Greiss made 30 saves in the win.

“I just know that when he gets his opportunity, he takes the ball and he runs with it,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said of Greiss. “He’s worked extremely hard. I just had that feeling he’d be there tonight, and he played well.”

It was Greiss’ first start since early January.

“It was nice to get recharged there,” Greiss said of his long layoff. “I jump in there when I get the call. It always helps when you get a bunch of quick goals.”

Connor McDavid scored the only goal for the Oilers.

“I’m really disappointed in the preparation, the approach to the game,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “We got our butts handed to us in Montreal (a 5-1 loss on Saturday) and we came in here and responded in a very inappropriate way and that’s very disappointing.”

Anders Nilsson got the started and yielded three goals on 10 shots in the first period; he was pulled in favor of Cam Talbot who made 16 saves in relief.

The Oilers lost 5-1 to the Montreal Canadiens Saturday night.

“We’ve got to be better than that. That’s all,” McDavid said.

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