NHL Roundup: John Carlson lifts Capitals, Canucks drop Knights, and more
Anthony Scultore
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Today’s NHL Roundup for Wednesday, April 6, 2022 recaps all five games on the schedule.
Starting in Vegas, Jack Eichel’s hopes to play in the postseason took a hit despite scoring a goal, as the Golden Knights fell to the Vancouver Canucks. The Knights remain one point behind the Dallas Stars, who also hold a three game advantage.
We start the recaps in Washington D.C., where two struggling teams squared off looking to get on track. The Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning battled hard, but thanks to defenseman John Carlson’s big night the Caps came out victorious.
NHL Roundup: Capitals 4, Lightning 3
Defenseman John Carlson had two power-play goals and two assists as the Washington Capitals salvaged a game in the season series by defeating the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 on Wednesday.
“The power play, it’s been good,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s been on point for a while, but they moved it well. John Carlson had a massive game. He was noticeable not only in the offensive zone, because that’s where it’s easy to notice him, but he was really good in the defensive zone.”
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Alex Ovechkin eclipsed the 1,400-point milestone with a goal and an assist, Martin Fehervary tallied and Evgeny Kuznetsov had two assists for the Capitals (38-22-10, 86 points), who finished the season 1-1-1 against Tampa Bay.
Making just his third start in the past 11 games, Washington goalie Ilya Samsonov allowed three goals on 28 shots.
Nikita Kucherov, Nicholas Paul and Ross Colton produced goals and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves for the Lightning (43-20-7, 93 points).
Blues 4, Kraken 1
Ville Husso stopped 28 of 29 shots as St. Louis defeated visiting Seattle to run its point streak to six games.
The Blues are 5-0-1 in that span. They completed their three-game season sweep of the Kraken and improved to 15-3-3 against the Pacific Division. Robert Thomas, Justin Faulk, Jordan Kyrou and Ryan O’Reilly scored for the Blues and Brayden Schenn had two assists.
Jordan Eberle scored and Chris Driedger made 32 saves for the Kraken.
Canucks 5, Golden Knights 1
Elias Pettersson had two goals and two assists while Thatcher Demko made 33 saves as Vancouver kept its slim playoff hopes alive with a victory over Vegas in Las Vegas.
It was the fourth four-point game of Pettersson’s career. Bo Horvat, Tanner Pearson and Brad Richardson also scored goals for Vancouver, which snapped a three-game losing streak. J.T. Miller and Oliver Ekman-Larsson each added two assists for the Canucks, who closed within seven points of the idle Dallas Stars for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with just 11 games remaining.
Jack Eichel scored for Vegas, which had a five-game winning streak snapped while also taking the first regulation regular-season loss to the Canucks in team history (10-1-2). Robin Lehner finished with 26 saves.
“Nothing good to say, we got what we deserved,” Vegas coach Pete DeBoer said. “I don’t think we gave ourselves a chance to win that game right from the first period, the way the game started. It’s disappointing, but we played some pretty good hockey lately. We’ve got to rebound here quickly.”
Flames 4, Ducks 2
Michael Stone made his 500th career game extra memorable by collecting a goal and an assist to pace visiting Calgary to a victory over Anaheim.
Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli and Matthew Tkachuk also scored for the first-place Flames, who are six points ahead of the second-place Edmonton Oilers in the Pacific Division.
Trevor Zegras and Adam Henrique replied for the Ducks, who have just one win in their past 14 games (1-10-3). Anthony Stolarz stopped 24 shots.
Red Wings 3, Jets 1
Michael Rasmussen scored the tiebreaking goal near the midway mark of the third period, Thomas Greiss made 32 saves to snap a six-start winless streak and Detroit won at Winnipeg.
Sam Gagner scored twice, including an empty-netter to help the Red Wings post back-to-back victories for the first time since Feb. 9 and 12.
Mark Scheifele scored for the Jets, who lost their third game in a row. Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck stopped 32 shots.
–Field Level Media contributed to this report.