NHL Scores: Senators blow Leafs away with huge comeback, Hurricanes wipe out Blue Jackets and more
Anthony Scultore
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The action was wild on President’s Day in the NHL. Loaded with big comebacks, great goals, and bang for your buck excitement. From Ottawa erasing a four goal deficit to Carolina coming up with six unanswered to win, it was a fun day of hockey.
NHL Scores: Senators blow away Leafs four goal lead, win in OT
The Battle of Ontario looked like it was going to be a Maple Leafs (11-3-2) massacre of the Senators (4-12-1). Up 5-1 with 9 seconds remaining in the second period, Nick Paul got the comeback going. Ottawa would score three more times in the third with Evgenii Dadonov tying it up at 3:01 remaining on the clock. He would then win it in OT to put an exclamation point on Toronto’s collapse.
“It’s hockey, anything can happen,” said the game’s hero Dadonov. “So we didn’t stop playing. We just played shift by shift and score goal by goal.”
For Toronto they wasted a superb Auston Matthews performance who scored twice (12, 13) and added an assist. Joe Thornton also played his first game back from injury and picked up two points (1G, 1A). In the end, the Leafs couldn’t stop the bleeding on defense and lost.
“I thought we were just really careless and sloppy with the puck. It’s something that’s been creeping into our game,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe explained. “It wasn’t everybody, but it was enough guys that we gave the game to them at a time where they really had nothing happening. They only got what we gave them.”
NHL Scores: Hurricanes overcome 3-1 deficit with six unanswered goals
The Blue Jackets (7-6-4) came out of the gate strong against the Hurricanes (10-3) and built up a nice 3-1 lead. Then late in the first, Jordan Staal would score his first of two bookend markers and Carolina breezed to a 7-3 victory.
“This year, [Staal’s] a special guy,” Svechnikov beamed picking up an assist on the last goal. “It’s so fun to play with him. It’s kind of easy to play with him.” Jordan now has eight points in his last five games.
As for John Tortorella, he wasn’t pleased.”We need to work on things – guys that need to know how to play hard, need to know how to handle momentum swings,” he said. “We just have to calm ourselves down with our coverages in our zone.”
NHL Scores: Coyotes shutout Blues, Sabres back with a loss, and more
The Coyotes (7-6-2) and Blues (9-5-2) finished their seven game set with a Darcy Kuemper shutout. Arizona’s 1-0 win by his 24 saves was their 4th win against the Blues in this playoff length regular season series. I am sure both sides are happy to be done with each other for a long while.
Buffalo was welcomed back after their COVID postponement with a loss. The Islanders (7-4-3) got the scoring started with Anders Lee’s fifth and never looked back winning 3-1 over the Sabres (4-5-2).
Steven Stamkos scored his eight of the year but the Panthers (9-2-2) still came out on top of the Lightning (10-3-1) 6-4. The Blackhawks (8-5-4) also continue to surprise as they win again beating the Red Wings (4-10-3) 3-2 in OT.
Remaining Scores:
- Jets (9-5-1) edge out Oilers (9-8) 6-5
- Flames (8-6-1) beat the Canucks (7-11-1) in OT
- Sharks (6-7-1) defeat the Ducks (6-7-3) 3-2
Catch up on yesterday’s NHL Rumors
All the latest rumors and trade talk from around the league here.