Pittsburgh’s Matt Niskanen scored with 8:02 left in the third period to break a 1-1 tie and lead the Penguins to a 10th straight win, 2-1 over Washington. Paul Martin had the other goal for Pittsburgh while Alex Ovechkin lit the lamp for Washington.
SPIN: Sidney Crosby picked up his league-leading 36th and 37th assists on the season and continues to make his case for the best player in fantasy hockey. Braden Holtby made 34 saves in the losing effort while Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 28 shots in the win. Pittsburgh continues to roll along despite injuries to Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz.
The Rangers slipped past New Jersey 3-2 on Rick Nash’s 10th goal of the season late in the second period.
SPIN: Michael Del Zotto had a goal and an assist for the Rangers and was the only other player with multiple points in this game. Consecutive wins have the Rangers back in a position to battle for the playoffs. New Jersey might be too. Martin Brodeur was active and served as the backup goaltender last night for New Jersey. Brodeur is expected to start against Carolina Thursday and could be the elixir the Devils need as they’ve gone 3-8-2 without him.
Ottawa beat the Islanders 5-3 with a four-goal third-period outburst. Sergei Gonchar had a goal and two assists for Ottawa.
SPIN: The Islanders were up 3-1 after 40 minutes and then the wheels fell off. Ottawa scored twice 1:08 apart early in the third period and twice more in the final minute of the game. Daniel Alfredsson picked up an assist for the 1,100th point of his career.
Florida took down Carolina 4-1 in a game that was scoreless after two periods.
SPIN: Florida went 2-of-3 on the power play with goals from Marcel Goc and Shawn Matthias coming 64 seconds apart to break the game open. Jordan Staal’s seventh of the season broke the shutout bid of Jacob Markstrom who turned aside 33 shots in the win. Dan Ellis made 40 saves in the loss for Carolina.
Columbus beat Nashville 4-3 to extend their franchise-record point streak to 11 games. Columbus is tied with San Jose in points for the final spot but the Sharks hold it for now since they’ve played two fewer games.
SPIN: Vinny Prospal had three assists for Columbus and Jack Johnson had two more in the win. The Blue Jackets had a comfortable 4-1 lead in the final three minutes of the game before allowing Chris Mueller and Mike Fisher to score in a 47-second span to make it a game. Ryan Suter assisted on both of those goals for the Predators. Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves for Columbus and is 7-0-2 in his last nine starts.
Buffalo beat Montreal 3-2 in a shootout. Steve Ott scored twice for Buffalo and Jhonas Enroth made 32 saves in the win.
SPIN: Buffalo scored twice in the first and Montreal rallied with two in the third to force overtime where Ott won it. The only thing more rare than Enroth starting was Enrorth winning. He stays on the waiver wire unless Ryan Miller gets hurt. Max Pacioretty and Colby Armstrong scored for Montreal in the loss. The Habs been beaten in regulation once since early February (13-1-4) and should be used accordingly.
Winnipeg bumped off Boston 3-1 behind a pair of third-period Blake Wheeler goals. Evander Kane also scored for the Jets while Brad Marchand continued to be consistent with the lone goal for Boston.
SPIN: Ondrej Pavelec stopped 27 of 28 shots to get the win and put the Jets back atop the Southeast Division. He’s won four of his last five starts to merit starts in goal. Just like Bobrovsky, Pavelec wasn’t expected to be a top-notch player between the pipes in fantasy but he’s getting the job done.
Vancouver squeaked past St. Louis 3-2 as Corey Schneider made 32 saves.
SPIN: The Canucks built a 3-0 lead after second-period goals from Jannik Hansen, Daniel Sedin and Dale Wiese. St. Louis responded with third-period tallies from Jaden Schwartz and Patrick Berglund to make it a one-goal game but the Blues couldn’t tie it up. Vladimir Tarasenko picked up his first assist since coming back from a concussion.
The Coyotes finally scored a goal. Two to be exact, both by Shane Doan but still lost their fourth straight game when they fell 3-2 to Los Angeles.
SPIN: Jonathan Bernier made 40 saves in the win while Dustin Penner notched his second goal of the season. The Coyotes four-game slide knocked them out of a playoff spot for now. Check out the Stats of the Night below to see how bad the offensive blackout was.
Multiple Goal Scorers
Doan-PHX, Ott-BUF, Wheeler-WPG
Stat of the Night
The Penguins are the first team in NHL history with 10-game win streaks in three consecutive seasons.
Stat of the Night II-Power Outage in Phoenix
Until Doan scored, Phoenix went a franchise-worst span 245:32 without a goal and 296:50 on the road. Phoenix had its last goal on the road…on February 26.
Three Stars of the Night
1 Ott
2 Bernier
3 Markstrom
Wednesday’s Games (all times ET)
Tampa at Toronto 7pm
Minnesota at Detroit 730pm
Dallas at Colorado 930pm
San Jose at Edmonton 930pm
Chicago (24-2-3) at Anaheim (21-3-4) 10pm Game of the night right there.
