NHL Recaps: Red Wings roar back on Pens, John Gibson stops 49 shots vs Vegas, and more
NHL Recaps: December 28, 2022
It was light Wednesday night across the National Hockey League with five games on tap.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins, and Calgary Flames all came away with wins. However, the goaltending of John Gibson for the Anaheim Ducks in a shootout victory over the Vegas Golden Knights was the standout solo performance.
Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, the Detroit Red Wings rallied for a huge victory in overtime against the Penguins. After finding themselves down 4-0 when the first period buzzer sounded, the Wings went to work and eventually grounded the Pens.
NHL Recaps: Red Wings score four unanswered
Red Wings 5 vs Penguins 4 (OT)
Jake Walman’s sixth career goal came off a feed from Andrew Copp on a two-on-one at 2:13 of overtime Wednesday as the visiting Detroit Red Wings erased a four-goal deficit to top the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-4.
“That was a great game,” Walman said via NHL.com. “I think the boys showed a lot of resilience.”
Dylan Larkin, Joe Veleno, Jonatan Berggren and David Perron also scored and Lucas Raymond had two assists for the Red Wings, who won their second straight game.
Detroit goaltender Ville Husso gave up four goals on 12 shots and was replaced at the start of the second period by Magnus Hellberg, who stopped all 19 shots he faced.
Jason Zucker scored twice, Jeff Carter had a goal and an assist, Drew O’Connor also scored and Kasperi Kapanen and Bryan Rust each had two assists for the Penguins, who are 1-2-2 in their past five games. Casey DeSmith made 41 saves.
“We just didn’t play the game the right way,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “I mean, it’s as simple as that. We didn’t play the game the right way. We didn’t manage the game. We didn’t manage the puck. We’re not playing a collective game right now.
NHL.com
Lightning 4 vs Canadiens 1
Brayden Point netted two goals, Nikita Kucherov reached 50 points in his 33rd game and Tampa Bay beat visiting Montreal. On pace for his third 100-point campaign, Kucherov collected his league-leading 37th assist to break a tie with the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves to beat Montreal for the 11th straight time in the regular season. Only the Ottawa Senators’ Alec Connell (1925-27) and the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Turk Broda (1939-41) have longer winning streaks against the Canadiens — each with 12.
In Tampa Bay’s fifth straight home victory, Alex Killorn and Brandon Hagel tallied while Victor Hedman had two assists. Kaiden Guhle scored for the Canadiens, and Jake Allen stopped 34 shots.
Bruins 3 vs Devils 1
Boston received a 30-save performance from Linus Ullmark and remained the only NHL team that hasn’t lost consecutive games this season by picking up a victory in Newark, N.J.
Patrice Bergeron broke a 1-1 tie when he tipped a Hampus Lindholm shot from the left point past Vitek Vanecek (24 saves) with 4:09 to play, and Pavel Zacha finalized the scoring when he shot the puck into an empty net during a breakaway with 1:49 remaining.
Trent Frederic also scored for Boston, which was coming off a 3-2 shootout loss at Ottawa on Tuesday. Lindholm had two assists. Nico Hischier scored for New Jersey, which has lost its past six home games.
NHL Recaps: John Gibson stops 49 Vegas shots

Ducks 3 vs Golden Knights 2 (SO)
John Gibson made a season-high 49 saves and Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry both scored in the shootout to give Anaheim a victory over visiting Vegas. Gibson was playing his first game since sustaining a lower-body injury on Dec. 13.
“That’s my job; I do it all the time,” Gibson said via NHL.com. “You just have to make the plays and make the saves. The team did a good job of cleaning the rebounds out and helping me out when I needed it.”
Adam Henrique scored two goals for Anaheim, the 25th multi-goal game of his career, while Terry and Zegras each assisted on both goals.
Mark Stone and Ben Hutton scored for the Golden Knights, who lost consecutive road games for the first time this season. Logan Thompson, who replaced starter Adin Hill at the 12:26 mark of the first period after Hill allowed two goals on five shots, made 22 saves.
Flames 3 vs Kraken 2
Jonathan Huberdeau scored the tiebreaking goal with eight minutes remaining as Calgary won at Seattle.
Nazem Kadri added a goal and an assist, Tyler Toffoli also scored and Rasmus Andersson had two assists for the Flames, who improved to 4-1-1 in their past six games and moved past Seattle and Edmonton and into third place in the Pacific Division. Dan Vladar made 29 saves.
Ryan Donato and Jamie Oleksiak scored for Seattle and Jordan Eberle had two assists. Philipp Grubauer stopped 41 of 44 shots.
–Field Level Media