Dave Boland and Brandon Saad each scored twice to fuel Chicago’s 7-1 obliteration of Detroit on Easter Sunday. Johnathan Toews scored his 17th of the season for the Blackhawks while Cory Emmerton’s goal with 33 seconds left broke up the shutout bid of Corey Crawford.
SPIN: Chicago scored three times in a two-minute span of the first period to get off to a hot start and never look back. Jimmy Howard took the lumps in goal for Detroit as he allowed the first four goals before Jonas Gustavsson relieved him early in the second period. Chicago reasserted itself as the top team in the West for now.
Columbus nipped Anaheim in overtime 2-1. Mark Letestu scored four minutes into the extra session to give Columbus the win–and the eighth spot in the West for now. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 30 shots for the win.
SPIN: Anaheim keeps picking up points and staying right on the Hawks’ tail. Columbus keeps picking up position in the standings. The Blue Jackets are a much better team at home and I’d be more leery using them when they are on the road.
The Kings downed Dallas 3-2. Brad Richardson and Justin Williams scored 69 seconds apart in the early third period to give Los Angeles the offense it needed.
SPIN: The Kings kept Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen busy as he faced 40 shots in the game. Johnathan Bernier, on the other end, saw just 15 shots but picked up his eighth win of the season. Jeff Carter picked up his 20th goal of the season for the Kings in the win and has been one of the surprises of the season.
Boston blanked Buffalo 2-0 behind Anton Khudobin’s 26-save shutout. David Krejci and Nathan Horton each had a goal and an assist in the win.
SPIN: Ryan Miller of the Sabres made 29 saves but isn’t getting any offense support, again, so this season is all but lost for him. Thomas Vanek sat out again with his upper-body injury and the Sabres’ offense really misses him.
Philly downed Washington 5-4 in overtime on Ruslan Fedotenko’s third goal of the season 1:34 into the extra session.
SPIN: The third period was a knock-down, drag-out period with Washington scoring twice in a 26-second span to take a 4-2 lead. Philly countered with a Claude Giroux goal in the middle of the period before Kimmo Timonen scored with 10 seconds left in regulation to tie the game. This is the kind of game to expect over the final month of the season as desperate teams go head-to-head as they hold out hope of making the playoffs.
Multiple Goal Scorers
Boland-CHI, Saad-CHI
Stat of the Night
If the playoffs started today, Columbus would have the worst record of any playoff team at 4-10-2.
Three Stars of the Night
1 Khudobin
2 Crawford
3 Saad
Monday’s Games (all times ET)
NY Islanders at Devils 7pm
Winnipeg at NY Rangers 7pm
Carolina at Montreal 730pm
Colorado at Detroit 730pm
St. Louis at Minnesota 8pm
Nashville at Chicago 830pm
Anaheim at Dallas 830pm
Calgary at Edmonton 930pm
Vancouver at San Jose 1030pm
