NHL Roundup: Lightning, Flames, and Wild come up big with trades starting to roll in
Anthony Scultore
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Today’s NHL Roundup for March 16, 2022 recaps all four games on Wednesday night.
As a handful of deals were consummated, including the Florida Panthers making two and landing top rental defenseman Ben Chiarot, games still needed to be played.
Three of the NHL’s top dogs all came up with big wins. The Lightning got a big performance from two of their key players to knock off the Seattle Kraken. Meanwhile the Wild and Bruins battled it out in a playoff style matchup with Minnesota coming out the victors.
Let’s dive in on all the action.
NHL Roundup: Lightning 4, Kraken 1
Victor Hedman scored a pair of power-play goals as the Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up a six-game trip with a 4-1 victory against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday night.
Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Cirelli also scored and Steven Stamkos, playing in his 900th career game, had three assists for the Lightning, who went 3-3-0 on the trip. Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.
“I’m just proud of being part of this organization for all 900 of those and hopefully many more to come,” Stamkos said. “Some of the adverse times that I’ve gone through with all the support that I’ve had, and just trying to get back to the player I know I can be and have the impact on the ice that I know I can bring every night. It’s been a lot of hard work behind the scenes just to get to this point. I look forward to the challenge ahead.”
Yanni Gourde scored for the expansion Kraken, which lost for the 12th time in the past 14 games (2-10-2). Philipp Grubauer stopped 35 shots.
Blue Jackets 4, Senators 1
Jack Roslovic recorded his second two-goal performance of the season to fuel Columbus to a victory at Ottawa.
Eric Robinson scored for the second time in as many games, Sean Kuraly also tallied and Patrik Laine and defenseman Zach Werenski each notched two assists for the Blue Jackets, who have won three in a row. Columbus’ Elvis Merzlikins notched 30 saves.
Tyler Ennis scored a goal and Anton Forsberg turned aside 33 shots for the Senators, who have lost eight of their past 10 games. Minutes-eating defenseman Thomas Chabot recorded an assist before exiting early in the second period due to an upper-body injury.
“You’ve got to learn how to play with a lead,” Columbus coach Brad Larsen said. “In the third period there, they’re going to make their push, they’re going to get some chances, but I thought we did a good job of minimizing the Grade-A chances, doing a good job in front of Elvis. And he made some saves at key times for us.”
Wild 4, Bruins 2
Jordan Greenway scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, and Minnesota held on for a win over Boston in Saint Paul, Minn.
Kirill Kaprizov scored twice and Ryan Hartman added an empty-net goal for Minnesota, which snapped a two-game skid. Jared Spurgeon tallied two assists for the Wild. Cam Talbot stopped 24 of 26 shots in the win.
Craig Smith and Brad Marchand scored one goal apiece for the Bruins, whose three-game winning streak ended. Jeremy Swayman turned aside 30 of 33 shots.
“It was intense, a very intense hockey game,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “Lots of chirping. But lots of physicality. There were some big, big hits in that hockey game and we talk all the time about playoff hockey. That was playoff hockey.”
Flames 6, Devils 3
Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and two assists as Calgary earned a win over visiting New Jersey.
Dillon Dube had a goal and an assist for Calgary. Brett Ritchie, Andrew Mangiapane, Johnny Gaudreau and Milan Lucic scored the Flames’ other goals, and Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 of 33 shots.
Yegor Sharangovich, P.K. Subban and Dawson Mercer scored for the Devils. Nico Hischier had two assists, giving the New Jersey captain 16 points (eight goals, eight assists) in his past 13 games.
“Didn’t like parts of our game,” the ever upbeat Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. “I didn’t like the penalties, I didn’t like the double minor, didn’t like the too many men. Didn’t like the second goal. Outscored our mistakes tonight.”
–Field Level Media contributed to this report