NHL Nightly Recap: Chicago Blackhawks Remain Hockey’s Best Team
By Josh Hill
The fourth night of hockey is officially in the books and the Chicago Blackhawks continue to be the best team in the NHL. With a 3-2 win over the St. Louis Blues, Chicago improves to 3-0 and leads the NHL with six points. We also had the emergence of Nail Yakupov, the first round pick from this year’s NHL Entry Draft who scored his first goal of his career on Tuesday night. We had a total of nine games in the NHL on Tuesday night so let’s dive right into the recap:
Minnesota Wild 1, Nashville Predators 3
Ryan Suter played his first game against his old team on Tuesday and while he may have gotten a fat contract from the Wild, it was the Predators that got the best of Suter in the showdown. Dany Heatley got backed to his scoring ways, picking up a goal right away in the first period after not scoring in the Wild’s game on Sunday against the Stars. That one goal ended up being all the scoring the WIld could muster up as Nick Spaling, Martin Erat and David Legwand scored a goal in the first, second and third periods respectively. The win was Nashville’s first of the season while the loss was Minnesota’s first.
St. Louis Blues 2, Chicago Blackhawks 3
Chicago won their third game of the NHL season which keeps them above the rest of the pack in not only the Western Conference but the entire NHL. Patrick Kane picked up his second goal of the season at the 7:20 mark in the first period which was followed by a Brent Seabrook goal in the second and Viktor Stalberg’s second goal of the year in the third.
It was looking like it was going to be a shootout before both Andy McDonald and T.J. Oshie scored goals in the third to give the illusion of a comeback. The loss drops the Blues to 2-1 on the season, but things are far from going down the tubes in St. Louis.
San Jose Sharks 6, Edmonton Oilers 3
Nail Yakupov scored his first goal of his NHL career against the Sharks, but that ended up being the highlight of the Oilers night during their home opener on Tuesday. San Jose leaped out to a 6-1 lead in the first period and cooled after that but they could afford to — they were up 6-1 after the first. Justin Schultz picked up a goal in the second and Taylor Hall grabbed an unassisted goal in the third to make the game seem interesting but the damage was already done.
Edmonton drops to 1-1 on the season and the Sharks successfully spoiled their home opener in Oiler Country.
Winnipeg Jets 4, Washington Capitals 2
BREAKING NEWS: the Jets won a hockey game. After dropping their season opener the Jets bounced back to get back to .500 on the season with a 4-2 win over the drowning Washington Capitals. The Jets jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the game before the Caps picked up another goal but while the Jets won the game — which is always notable– the story is how awful the Caps have started their season.
They’ve dropped both of their games so far this season and they’ve looked unengaged in both of those losses. Something serious needs to happen in Washington, as even though it’s just two games so far, something looks off about the Caps.
Tampa Bay Lighting 4, Carolina Hurricanes 1
The Canes continue to show that the Jordan Staal experiment was probably a bad idea. Staal did pick up an assist in the loss but he remains goal-less and the same goes for his brother. This tandem was supposed to be something that made the Canes excel but so far the experiment is off to a painfully slow start. As for the Lightning, they’re off to a splendid start, scoring 13 goals over the last three games and only having lost a single game this season.
In this lockout shortened season, all it will take to make a Stanley Cup run is to get hot at the right time and the Lighting look to be getting off to a very flashy start.
Philadelphia Flyers 0, New Jersey Devils 3
These two teams met in the Conference Semifinals last year in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and it was basically a continuation of New Jersey’s dominance as the Devils steamrolled the Flyers in a shutout win. The Devils were spent, when it came to scoring, after the second period after Travis Zajac and David Clarkson each scored their second goals of the season and Ilya Kovalchuk added his first.
However, the bigger story is how the Flyers have been so slow out of the gate, now losing their third straight game of this shortened campaign. This season will be defined by streaks, both good and bad. All a team needs is to string together a few wins in a row and the momentum will shift, but the same goes if they lose those games as well. There’s only 45 more games to go for the Flyers and they can’t afford to continue this recent trend.
The Best of the Rest
(1-2, 2pts) Florida Panthers 1, (1-1, 2pts) Montreal Canadiens 4
(2-1, 4pts) Dallas Stars 2, (2-1, 2pts) Detroit Red Wings 2
(0-2, 0pts) Los Angeles Kings 1, (1-1, 2pts) Colorado Avalanche 3