Brent Seabrook’s overtime goal past Steve Mason gave the Chicago Blackhawks a 4-3 win last night and a 21-game unbeaten streak to open the season at 18-0-3. Johnathan Towes hit him with a beautiful cross-ice pass and Seabrook buried it to an open net to end the game. Seabrook scored and this played.
Victor Stalberg, Patrick Sharp and Bryan Bickell had the other goals for Chicago while Vinny Prospal, Artem Anisimov and Ryan Johansen lit the lamp for Columbus.
SPIN: One sentence: Chicago continues to dominate while Columbus shows little signs of improvement.
St. Louis scored four unanswered goals and defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-2. Jaden Schwartz, Vladimir Sobotka and David Backes each had a goal and an assist for the Blues. Kevin Shattenkirk scored the other Blues goal while Taylor Hall and Ryan Whitney scored 23 seconds apart in the first period for Edmonton.
SPIN: Hall has scored in both games since coming back from his suspension for kneeing Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck so the time off may have done him some good in that regard. Then again, Hall hurt his leg in the second period and might miss a few days. The Blues are just 2-5-1 in their last eight home games so hopefully this come-from-behind win over Edmonton sparks a rally. Devan Dubnyk stopped 26-of-30 St. Louis shots in the loss.
I still don’t understand why teams seem to be afraid to shoot at Jaroslav Halak. Edmonton fired off just 17 shots on goal. Halak has not faced more than 23 shots on goal in any game this season. It’s puzzling that teams just aren’t shooting and it makes Halak tougher to start in leagues where save percentage plays a key role.
Anaheim withstood a third-period surge from Minnesota and downed the Wild 3-2 to improve to 15-3-1 on the season. Jonas Hiller made 31 saves for the win while Ryan Getzlaf, Teemu Selanne and Matt Beleskey lit the lamp for the Ducks. Kyle Brodziak and Devin Setoguchi scored for Minnesota.
SPIN: Hiller took advantage of a rare start to post a win and get some confidence back after Victor Fasth stole the starting job from him. The line of Getzlaf-Corey Perry-Kyle Palmieri combined for the first goal of the game and continues to be impressive. Sheldon Souray was scratched for the Ducks to give him a maintenance day before March’s heavy workload comes up. The Ducks have their next three games against Phoenix.
Multiple Goal Scorers-NONE
Stat of the Night
Chicago is 11-0-3 in one-goal games.
Three Stars of the Night
1. Seabrook
2. Hiller
3. Sobotka
Saturday’s Games (all times ET)
Ottawa at Philly 12pm The Flyers try for the sixth time to get to .500
Tampa at Boston 1pm Will the Lightning offense ever come back? Probably not. Will Boston win a six straight?
New Jersey at Buffalo 3pm Will Ryan Miller continue his strong play?
Washington at Winnipeg 3pm Winnipeg goes for a fourth straight win.
Pittsburgh at Montreal 7pm The top two teams in the east go head-to-head in a marquee game.
Florida at Carolina 7pm Carolina can’t beat the Southeast Division.
Anaheim at Phoenix 9pm First of three straight games between these two teams.
LA at Vancouver 10pm Will the Kings make it six in a row?
Nashville at San Jose 1030pm Two teams with offensive problems. I’ll pass.
