Dubnyk shuts door on Canucks
There were six games in the NHL on Friday so let’s get to them. It’s different not having James O’Brien doing this but let’s have some fun with it.
One note: I was at the Penguins-Leafs game on Friday and noticed that the Jon Bon Jovi banner was no longer hanging from the rafters. I wonder that since MLSE (Tanenbaum) and Bon Jovi are no longer partnering on an NFL franchise, is this the reason for the taking down of the banner.
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Columbus 4 Philadelphia 3
The Blue Jackets finally halted their nine game losing streak, beating the Flyers. James Wisniewski scored twice on the power play and he became only the second blueliner in Columbus history to score multiple power play goals in one game. Bryan Bedard was the first.
Ryan Johansen assisted on all four goals with Nick Foligno also chipping in with two goals.
For the Flyers, Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek each had a power play goal and assist with Michael Del Zotto also scoring.
Giroux led all players with seven shots on goal while Cam Atkinson and Scott Hartnell had six for the Blue Jackets. Zac Rinaldo led the way with six hits.
Giroux was 18-28 on the draw while Johansen won 11 of 24 for Columbus.
New Jersey 1 Washington 0
Cory Schneider stopped all 30 shots and Michael Cammalleri scored the only goal of the game as the Devils topped the Capitals. It was Schneider’s 17th straight start this season. Braden Holtby was the hard-luck loser, stopping 27-of-28.
Stephen Gionta had five shots on goal with Joel Ward and Magnus Johansson leading the Capitals with four each.
Adam Larsson led with five blocked shifts while Mike Green and Troy Brouwer each had three hits.
Nicklas Backstrom was 12-for-17 on the draw. Patrik Elias won 10-of-21 with Travis Zajac winning only three and losing 10.
Pittsburgh 2 Toronto 1
The Penguins got two goals from Pascal Dupuis to defeat the Maple Leafs 2-1. Cody Franson scored for Toronto as the Penguins outshot the Leafs 40-31. Thomas Greiss was solid in net for Pittsburgh while the same could be said about Jonathan Bernier.
Dupuis had eight shots on goals with James van Riemsdyk leading Toronto with five.
The play got chippy with a couple of minutes to go in the game as Dion Phaneuf laid a thundering bodycheck on Patric Hornqvist. Evgeni Malkin came to his defense and took an extra roughing penalty allowing the Maple Leafs to pull the goalie to have a six-on-four advantage with 2:14 to go but it was to no avail as Greiss shut the door.
Leo Komarov had seven hits with teammate Roman Polak getting six. Kris Letang had five to lead Pittsburgh.
Sidney Crosby and Tyler Bozak were 13-of-21 on the draw but the start of the show was Marcel Goc who won nine and dropped only four.
Detroit 4 Chicago 1
There were some nice goaltending performances in the NHL on Friday and Jimmy Howard provided one of them as he stopped 25-of-26 shots in the win over Chicago. Howard was a perfect 25-for-25 when the teams were at even strength but allowed a power play goal on the only shot the Blackhawks got through, courtesy of Patrick Kane.
Luke Glendening had a goal and an assist to lead the Red Wings with Johan Franzen, who had the winner, Tomas Tatan and Brendan Smith into the empty net, providing the rest of the scoring.
Andrew Shaw led the Blackhawks with three hits with Tatar and Kane each had six shots on goal.
Jonathan Toews was nine-for-17 on the draw but Ben Smith won only one-of- seven for Chicago. Pavel Datsyuk won eight-of-13 for Detroit.
New York Islanders 4 Florida 3 (shootout)
Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo beat Roberto Luongo in the shootout while Jonathan Huberdeau was the only Panther to get one by Jaroslav Halak to give the Islanders the shootout win.
New York blew a 3-1 third period lead when defensemen Brian Campbell and Aaron Ekblad scored to send the game into overtime and eventually the shootout. Jimmy Hayes also scored for Florida with John Tavares, Ryan Strome and Nikolay Kulemin replying for the Islanders.
Josh Bailey returned to action after missing eight games and saw time on the first line as he assisted on Tavares’s goal.
Halak finally gave up a goal after going 156:14 minutes without allowing one.
Matt Martin had five this with Hayes leading in shots on goal with five. Willie Mitchell had five blocked shots.
Vincent Trocheck was excellent on the draw, winning nine and losing only two with Aleksander Barkov splitting 22 chances. The Islanders struggled at the faceoff dot with Tavares winning only eight-of-19, while Strome was five-for-15 and Neilsen winning only four-of-16.
Arizona 5 Vancouver 0
Devan Dubnyk turned aside all 35 Vancouver shots and Martin Hanzal had the natural hat trick to lead the Coyotes to the win. Keith Yandle had a goal and two assists with Shane Doan scoring his sixth of the season to finish the scoring.
Radim Vrbata returned after missing two games as he played against his former teammates, but his return to the top line with the Sedin twins was stifled by Arizona.
Christopher Higgins had five shots on goal with Derek Dorsett and Kevin Bieksa leading the way with four hits as did the Coyotes Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Antoine Vermette won half of his 26 faceoffs as the Coyotes only used four players on the draw all night. Henrik Sedin was outstanding as he won 14-of-23 faceoffs.
Well, there you have it, my first Daily Dose of the season. Hope I was close to being as good as James O’Brien.
