NHL Three Stars: Brown's four points; Lehtonen's robbery; Granlund's bankshot

No. 1 Star: Connor Brown, Toronto Maple Leafs

It was a big night for the young Leaf. The rookie recorded a career first four point game with two goals and two assists in Toronto’s drubbing of the Florida Panthers, 6-1. His first goal was initially waved off before being turned over on a challenge by Mike Babcock.

No. 2 Star: Kari Lehtonen, Dallas Stars

The Stars put up three goal on the Colorado Avalanche in the first period, and seemed content to play defense the rest of the way. If it wasn’t for their goalie the team would have lost. Nate MacKinnon will see Lehtonen in his nightmares after the netminder stoned him twice on sure fire goals. Here’s one of the two:

No. 3 Star: Mikael Granlund, Minnesota Wild

It looked like the Wild and Boston Bruins were heading to overtime until Granlund banked the puck off of Adam McQuaid’s skate and behind Tukka Rask with 44.5 seconds left to give Minnesota the win.

Honorable Mention: James van Riemsdyk, Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov all had two-point nights. Mitch Marner had one goal and it was straight out of The Mighty Ducks. No, not the Knucklepuck (that’s D2, duh); a triple-deke!

… With his goal tonight, Patrick Eaves now has 14 points in 17 games … Brayden Point, Alex Killorn, and Valtteri Filppula collected two points each in the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 4-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Ben Bishop made a spectacular save on his own bonehead turnover … Devan Dubnyk earned his league-leading fourth shutout of the season. He helped his own cause in the third diving out towards Matt Beleskey who was in on a breakaway:

… The Philadelphia Flyers scored two goals on their first two shots of the game en route to a 5-2 win against the Winnipeg Jets. Dustin Byfuglien earned his first goal of the season in the loss … Pontus Aberg (great name) netted his first NHL goal in the Nashville Predators 5-1 thumping of the Ottawa Senators. James Neal extended his scoring streak to six games with this goal on a slick pass by P.K. Subban:

… Jaden Schwartz scored two goals in the St. Louis Blues 3-2 win over the San Jose Sharks. The Blues penalty kill was 6-for-6 against the Sharks … The Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks took a 2-2 game into overtime. Dylan Strome hooked Ben Hutton as he made his way towards the Arizona net. Hutton was awarded a penalty shot and won the game for Vancouver:

… The Anaheim Ducks snapped the New Jersey Devils five game win streak by a score of 3-2. The Devils went up 2-0 on the Ducks before Anaheim scored two goals in 16 seconds to tie the game. Ryan Kesler picked up his eighth goal of the season with the game winner in the third … After the Los Angeles Kings went up 2-0 on the Edmonton Oilers, the Oilers came back to tie the score. Less than a minute later, Jeff Carter scored a shorthanded goal that would stand as the game winner.

Did You Know: Semyon Varlamov snapped an 11 game personal win streak against the Dallas Stars in the 3-2 loss on Thursday.

Dishonorable Mention: James Reimer played his first game back in Toronto after being traded last season. It was a rough welcome as the goalie allowed six goals on 30 shots … The Avs were without Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog versus Dallas … Cedric Pacquette did not return to the game after taking a puck to the face in the second period while sitting on the bench … Patrik Laine was a minus-4 in the loss to Philly. Shayne Gostisbehere was healthy scratched for the Flyers. Rookie Travis Konecny had his butt glued to the bench by his head coach after playing only two shifts in the third period … Bobby Ryan left the game with an upper body injury after 4:46 TOI … Tomas Hertl left the game in the second period and did not return. Alexander Steen was not in the lineup for St. Louis … Derek Dorsett was injured in the first period and did not return. Brad Richardson left the game on a stretcher with a serious leg injury. He was taken to a Vancouver hospital for further evaluation … Joseph Cramarossa did not return to the game after colliding with teammate Rickard Rakell in the first period.

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Jen Neale is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @MsJenNeale_PD.