NHL Recaps: Juuse Saros stops 64 shots, Connor McDavid hits 500 assists, and more
The Daily Goal Horn
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NHL Recaps: January 5, 2023
It was an evening where the League announced their initial All-Star game rosters as ten games were being played.
The New York Rangers continued their hot play to down the Habs in Montreal and move up the Metro standings. That’s because the New Jersey Devils fell to the St. Louis Blues and the Carolina Hurricanes were stoned by freshly named All-Star Juuse Saros who made 64 saves.
Connor McDavid was also given the All-Star nod and led his Edmonton Oilers to victory over the New York Islanders by reaching 500 assists.
Let’s dive into all the action.
NHL Recaps: Juuse Saros stops 64 shots
Predators 5 vs Hurricanes 3
Goalie Juuse Saros made a franchise-record 64 saves and Mark Jankowski’s goal 5:06 into the third period gave Nashville a lead for the first time en route to beating Carolina in Raleigh, N.C.
“Some nights you need to pull puck luck there. It was all different [shots],” Saros said. “That was kind of the theme of the game, and they’re that kind of a team too, so I had to guess it was not going to slow down (in the third period).”
NHL.com
Saros, who was named to the All-Star Game, stopped 28 shots in the third period. Filip Forsberg, Mattias Ekholm, Cody Glass and Colton Sissons also scored for the Predators, who have a four-game point streak. Juuso Parssinen notched two assists.
Paul Stastny, Brady Skjei and Jordan Staal scored for the Hurricanes, who dominated most of the game but never had more than a one-goal lead. Brett Pesce had two assists. Pyotr Kochetkov, who was in the net for the first time in the last four home games, made 20 saves for Carolina.
Rangers 4 vs Canadiens 1
Filip Chytil had two goals and Chris Kreider and Braden Schneider also scored to lift New York past host Montreal for the Rangers’ third straight win.
Jaroslav Halak, starting in place of Igor Shesterkin, made 17 saves for the Rangers while Jake Allen made 27 saves for the Canadiens, who have lost seven straight games — the past six in regulation.
“I think for the most part we played a pretty good game,” Halak said via NHL.com. “The last five minutes, we knew they were going to kind of push and they got one goal. But the guys kind of stood their ground after that and we got another one. So, it’s a nice win for us and a good two points in the standings because I’m pretty sure it’s going to be tight until the end of the season.”
After a scoreless first period, New York put the game away with three goals in less than six minutes in the second. Kreider scored a short-handed breakaway goal by wristing a shot past Allen to open the scoring at the 7:43 mark of the period. Schneider beat Allen with a slap shot from just inside the blue line at the 12:28 mark to make it 2-0, and Chytil made it a 3-0 game 59 seconds later.
Capitals 6 vs Blue Jackets 2
T.J. Oshie scored two goals and Alex Ovechkin scored his seventh in four games for Washington, which beat host Columbus.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Martin Fehervary and Garnet Hathaway also scored, Dylan Strome had three assists, and Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves. Washington has won a franchise-record seven straight road games and is 7-0-2 in its past nine games overall and 12-2-3 in its past 17.
Johnny Gaudreau and Gavin Bayreuther scored for the Blue Jackets, who have lost nine of their past 10 games while being outscored 37-16. Emil Bemstrom had two assists, and Elvis Merzlikins made 31 saves.
Blues 5 vs Devils 3
Robert Thomas scored twice during St. Louis’ three-goal third period and had an assist earlier in the night as the Blues handed New Jersey its eighth straight home loss with a win in Newark, N.J.
The Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich recorded two of his three assists in the third, while Brandon Saad and Ivan Barbashev each had a goal with an assist. Jordan Kyrou scored for the eighth time in his last five road games.
Jordan Bennington made 36 saves as the Blues won their second straight game without injured key contributors Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko and Torey Krug, and despite putting just 19 shots on goal.
Flyers 6 vs Coyotes 2
Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny each had one goal and two assists to lift host Philadelphia past Arizona. Earlier in the day, Hayes received his first selection to the National Hockey League All-Star Game.
Joel Farabee, Wade Allison, Ivan Provorov and James van Riemsdyk each added one goal for the Flyers, who have a four-game winning streak for the first time since Jan. 26-31, 2021. Morgan Frost registered four assists.
Flyers goaltender Carter Hart returned to the starting lineup after suffering a concussion Dec. 23 against the Carolina Hurricanes. Hart made 21 saves. Michael Carcone and Nick Ritchie scored one goal apiece for the struggling Coyotes, who have dropped three straight overall and 11 consecutive games on the road.
NHL Recaps: Connor McDavid reaches 500 assists
Oilers 4 vs Islanders 2
Connor McDavid reached a milestone with two assists and Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also had multi-point performances as the Edmonton Oilers recorded a 4-2 win over the visiting New York Islanders on Thursday to end a two-game losing streak and a five-game skid (0-4-1) on home ice.
Draisaitl had a goal and an assist and Nugent-Hopkins collected two assists. Kailer Yamamoto, Dylan Holloway and Zach Hyman scored Edmonton’s other goals.
McDavid’s assists were the 499th and 500th of his NHL career. In league history, only Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Peter Stastny and Bobby Orr have reached the 500-assist threshold in fewer games than McDavid, who was playing in his 527th career contest.
Draisaitl also reached career assist 400 on Hyman’s tally.
Mathew Barzal and Cal Clutterbuck scored for the Islanders. Barzal is on a career-best, five-game goal streak, and he has six goals and two assists during that span.
“It was a good team win for us,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft said via NHL.com. “We controlled the game right from the drop of the puck and were able to finish it out. We have a lot of really proud people in our dressing room, and I saw them come together and play hard for each other.”
Kraken 5 vs Maple Leafs 1
Vince Dunn had a goal and two assists and Seattle scored four times in the second period to win in Toronto, the Kraken’s third straight win.
Jared McCann added a goal and an assist for the Kraken, who have also won the first two games of a seven-game road trip. Eeli Tolvanen, Matty Beniers and Alex Wennberg also scored goals for Seattle, and goaltender Martin Jones stopped 26 shots.
John Tavares scored for the Maple Leafs, who have lost the first two games of a three-game homestand. Matt Murray made 21 saves for Toronto.
Canucks 4 vs Avalanche 2
Andrei Kuzmenko scored twice as host Vancouver erased a two-goal deficit to hand Colorado its fifth straight loss.
Brock Boeser and J.T. Miller also scored for the Canucks, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Vancouver goaltender Collin Delia made 30 saves, while Elias Pettersson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Ilya Mikheyev each collected two assists.
Mikko Rantanen and Samuel Girard scored for the defending Stanley Cup champions, 0-4-1 skid is their worst of the season. Alexandar Georgiev stopped 39 shots.
Golden Knights 5 vs Penguins 2
Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Adin Hill made a season-high 38 saves to lead Vegas past visiting Pittsburgh in Eichel’s first game in nearly a month.
“I was just excited to get back out there. You never like watching games,” Eichel said via NHL.com. “For not playing for a few weeks, you always have a lot of energy, but not everything is as crisp as you hope.”
It was the 10th multiple-point game of the season for Eichel, who had missed the previous 11 games with a lower-body injury. Mark Stone, Paul Cotter and Phil Kessel also each had a goal and an assist, William Karlsson dished off two assists, and Chandler Stephenson added a goal for Vegas, which won its third straight game overall and fourth in a row at home.
Sidney Crosby scored his 20th goal of the season, the 15th time in his career he hit that milestone, and also had an assist. Ty Smith also scored for Pittsburgh, which lost its sixth straight game, just one off matching its longest losing streak of the season.
Bruins 5 vs Kings 2
Trent Frederic scored goals 34 seconds apart in the third period, David Pastrnak also scored two goals, and Boston defeated host Los Angeles.
Brad Marchand had a goal and an assist and Jeremy Swayman made 27 saves for Bruins, who extended their point streak to 12 games (9-0-3) in the opener of the three-game California trip. Boston’s Charlie McAvoy had two assists.
Phillip Danault and Sean Durzi scored and Pheonix Copley made 17 saves for the Kings, who had won three of their previous four, beating the Vegas Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars. Copley came into the game with seven straight wins, and he was 9-1-0 since he was recalled from Ontario of the American Hockey League.
–Field Level Media
–The Daily Goal Horn contributed to this article