| Two of the NHL’s slickest offensive talents will go head-to-head at the Saddledome on Saturday.Rookie star Elias Petterson leads the Vancouver Canucks into Calgary to face red-hot Johnny Gaudreau and the Flames.Both teams are coming off big road wins on Thursday.Article continues below ...Gaudreau posted his fourth career hat-trick Thursday in a 4-1 win in Winnipeg. He has 32 points in his last 19 games www.officialpredators.com , 13 of those points being goals.Pettersson had a goal and an assist as Vancouver scored on four of their first six shots in Edmonton in a 4-2 win over the Oilers. He has the game-winning goal in four of Vancouver’s past seven wins.Both teams practiced at Calgary’s Stampede Corral on Thursday, walking over from the Saddledome in full uniform. The old 7,000-seat arena was the Flames first home when they moved from Atlanta in 1980.Thursday’s game in Winnipeg ended on a nervous note for Calgary. Gaudreau took a slash from Jets‘ big defensemen Dustin Byfuglien late in Thursday’s game when he raced towards an empty-net goal. He left the ice in discomfort. It was enough of a slash that Byfuglien was fined $2,500 on Friday.Gaudreau also shook off the whack when talking to the media.“You know, it’s part of hockey. I mean, it won’t be the last time I’m slashed,” Gaudreau he told reporters. “Just kind of surprised. I had a foot or two on him, so I didn’t think I was going to get a stick to the arm, but I found the empty net and that’s the way it goes.” The Flames get nervous when Gaudreau is slashed because he suffered a broken thumb two years ago and missed 21 games after taking a chop from Minnesota Wild forward Eric Staal. The league began a crackdown on slashing for the 2017-2018 because of an increasing use of the stick.Calgary snapped a three-game losing streak in Winnipeg and is 6-3-1 in their past 10 games. They occupied top spot in the Pacific Division as of Friday afternoon, with a two point lead on San Jose with a game in hand.Vancouver has surprised so far in what was expected to be a rebuilding year and are 7-2-1 in their past 10 games led by Pettersson, who is headed towards a runaway win in the race for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top freshmen. As of Friday Vancouver was a point back of the second wild card spot through 40 games.Though it’s only the midway point of the 82-game season, Saturday’s game is being given plenty of importance.“As much as we’ve been on a good run lately, so has everybody else,” Flames general manager Brad Treliving told Postmedia News.“It’s not like we’ve built this big (separation between other teams). Most times when you go on a run, you build a significant cushion. We are just trying to keep our heads above everybody right now. There’s lots of runway left in the season, lots of good hockey teams that we’re playing.” The Canucks likewise aren’t celebrating their early season success.“From Day 1 Nashville Predators T-Shirts Authentic , we’ve talked about how we want to play,”head coach Travis Green told reporters in Edmonton. “We want to be faster and harder to play against, and we wanted to play meaningful games down the stretch. “We’re not getting ahead of ourselves – we’re at .500 right now and we have a long way to go.” PITTSBURGH (AP) — Olli Maatta and Matt Cullen scored 11 seconds apart in the first period, Matt Murray stopped 33 shots and the surging Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Winnipeg Jets 4-0 on Friday night for their eighth straight victory.Maatta got his first goal since last March when his shot on the power play beat Connor Hellebuyck with 5:41 left in the first period. Cullen added his fourth when Zach Aston-Reese’s centering pass went airborne and caromed off Cullen’s left shoulder and into the net. Dominik Simon also scored for Pittsburgh, picking up his sixth of the season when what appeared to be a spectacular save by Hellebuyck was overturned on replay.Murray made the lead stand up to extend his personal winning streak to seven, tying a career best. One point out of the Eastern Conference cellar in mid-November, the Penguins have won 10 of 11 overall to close in on defending Stanley Cup champion Washington in the competitive Metropolitan Division.Hellebuyck finished with 29 saves for Winnipeg but the Jets remained winless in Pittsburgh since 2007, when the Jets played in Atlanta.HURRICANES 4, BLUE JACKETS 2RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Greg McKegg had a goal and an assist in his Carolina debut and the Hurricanes beat Columbus.McKegg was recalled from Charlotte of the AHL on an emergency basis earlier in the day after Carolina placed Jordan Staal on injured reserve. Playing in his first NHL game since November 2017, the journeyman center had an assist in the first period and scored the decisive goal in the second to lift the Hurricanes to their third straight win.It was the first multi-point game of McKegg’s six-year career.Micheal Ferland, Dougie Hamilton and Sebastian Aho added goals for Carolina. Curtis McElhinney stopped 22 shots in his second straight win after four consecutive losses.Oliver Bjorkstrand and Artemi Panarin scored 25 seconds apart in the second period for the Blue Jackets. Sergei Bobrovsky surrendered three goals on 16 shots before being pulled midway through second period.RED WINGS 4, PREDATORS 3, OTDETROIT (AP) — Dylan Larkin scored with 24.9 seconds left in overtime as Detroit won for the first time in seven games.Andreas Athanasiou, Thomas Vanek and Tyler Bertuzzi also scored for Detroit, which had gone 0-4-2 in its last six games. Jimmy Howard stopped 27 shots.Defenseman P.K. Subban Nashville Predators Hoodies Authentic , Craig Smith and Ryan Johansen scored for Nashville. Pekka Rinne made 35 saves.Larkin beat Rinne with a backhander from the slot as he cut in from the left point for the winner. It was Larkin’s 18th goal.Johansen tied it 3-3 with 1:16 left in regulation and Rinne pulled for the extra attacker.STARS 2, CAPITALS 1, OTDALLAS (AP) — Tyler Seguin’s second goal of the game 3:37 into overtime lifted Dallas past Washington.Anton Khudobin made 36 saves, including the stop of a backhand by T.J. Oshie 1 1/2 minutes into overtime, to help Dallas complete a 3-0-1 homestand.Seguin’s winner, his fourth goal in two games, came after Alexander Radulov skated behind the net and passed across to Seguin at the right of the net.Lars Eller scored for Washington, which has lost three straight (0-2-1) and is tied with Pittsburgh in points atop the Metropolitan Division. The Capitals have played one fewer game than Pittsburgh, which beat Winnipeg earlier Friday.Washington rookie goalie Pheonix Copley had 27 saves but saw his seven-game winning streak end.AVALANCHE 6, RANGERS 1DENVER (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen scored power-play goals early in the first period, helping Colorado end a six-game slide.Gabriel Landeskog added a goal off his right skate, Alexander Kerfoot tipped in a shot, Rantanen deflected in yet another and Ryan Graves closed out the scoring with his first career NHL goal as a struggling Avalanche squad won for the first time since Dec. 19.Colorado finished 3 of 10 on the power play, with two of the goals scored following a 5-minute boarding call on former Avalanche player Cody McLeod just 2 1/2 minutes in.Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves, including one on a penalty shot by Jimmy Vesey late in the third.Ryan Strome scored the Rangers‘ lone goal midway through third period, and Alexandar Georgiev finished with 41 saves.Tyson Barrie had three assists to give him 278 career points Nashville Predators Hats Authentic , the most by a defenseman in franchise history. Barrie broke the mark held by John-Michael Liles.GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3, DUCKS 2ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Max Pacioretty scored in his return to the Vegas lineup and the Golden Knights won their fifth straight.Tomas Nosek had a goal and an assist, and Nate Schmidt also scored to help the Golden Knights improve to 6-0-2 in their last eight games. Marc Andre-Fleury made 25 saves.Daniel Sprong and Carter Rowney scored for the Ducks, who dropped to 0-5-2 in their last seven games. John Gibson made 39 saves.Vegas has won the first three games of the teams’ four-game season series.DEVILS 3, COYOTES 2, SOGLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Keith Kinkaid stopped 21 shots and had two saves in a shootout, lifting New Jersey to its fourth win in six games.Kinkaid, who entered after MacKenzie Blackwood left with a lower-body injury in the first period, stopped Alex Galchenyuk and Nick Cousins in the shootout. Kyle Palmeiri and Drew Stafford scored in the tiebreaker for the Devils.In regulation, New Jersey’s Nico Hischier scored his 11th goal on a shot that didn’t go into the net and Blake Coleman had his 12th of the season.Arizona’s Darcy Kuemper made a pair of spectacular saves in overtime, swiping a puck out of the crease after it trickled through on one, snatching another shot from a seated position on another. He allowed goals on the two shots he faced in the shootout and finished with 33 saves.Coner Garland and Christian Fischer scored in regulation for the Coyotes, who have lost 11 of 15. |
