Florida Panthers 1; Boston Bruins 2
Panthers back at it after defeating the Rangers just 24 hours before in New York didn’t have as much luck against another Original Six team. Heading into the break first place in the Northeast Division Bruins All-Star goaltender Tim Thomas had 34 saves while the Panthers Tomas Vokoun had 33 saves.
Carolina Hurricanes 4; New York Islanders 2
Islanders had only 4,976 in attendance for the game during the bad weather so they have announce that all fans in attendance or with a ticket to the Jan. 26th game can use their ticket for any future Islanders game.
Who says the All-Star game is meaningless? Being named a captain in the first re formatted game Carolina captain Eric Staal was highly motivated going up against the Islanders. Staal scored twice within a 1:38 span. It should not come as a shock to anyone that he skated off with the first star honor of the night.
Washington Capitals 0; Atlanta Thrashers 1
After a scary start to the season Ondrej Pavelec can now be thanked for helping lead the Thrashers into the All-Star break sitting in the top eight in the Eastern Conference. Pavelec stopped all 36 shots the Capitals threw at him in route to rounding out the season series 4-1-1.
The Capitals head into the break four points behind division leading Tampa Bay Lightning and have a 3-1-2 record for their last six games; and have been shutout seven times this season.
New Jersey Devils 1; Detroit Red Wings 3
The Red Wings head into the All-Star break victorious over the New Jersey Devils. After opening up the scoring for the night Red Wings Darren Helm took a slapshot to the foot form Ilya Kovalchuk. Helm went on to play the rest of the night and earned the first star of the game. Kovalchuk went on to see nearly 30 minutes of ice time and have a goal waived off for pushing to goaltender into the net. Game winner and second star went to Valtteri Filppula who was playing in his first game back after having the flu.
Edmonton Oilers 1; Dallas Stars 3
Wanting to but the previous game behind them the Stars came out guns blazing against the Oilers. Brenden Morrow lead the way with two goals while Kari Lehtonen stopped 34 shots to erase the memory of the 7 goals he let in in Calgary. It appears it worked as Lehtonen took the second star while Morrow took the top spot. The top three stars just happened to all be Stars as Jamie Langenbrunner took the third spot with his two primary assist on both of Morrow’s goals.
The game also saw the return of Matt Niskanen to the fighting ring as he took on Colin Fraser. Brad Gardner over at Defending Big D has the details and video.
Phoenix Coyotes 5; Colorado Avalanche 2
Matt Duchene picked up not only his 20th goal of the season but also his 100th point of his NHL career. To think he is only halfway though his sophomore season. Duchene was not enough for the rebounding Coyotes. After losing four of their last five games heading into the game the Coyotes out shot the Avalanche 14-1 in the first period.
“We needed a response after our game last night,” coach Dave Tippett said, “We didn’t play very well. We gave up a lead in the third period and we were looking for a strong response from our team.”
St. Louis Blues 1; Calgary Flames 4
They are back! The Calgary Flames are back in the push for a playoff spot. They might be in 12th place in the Western Conference but they have 54 points while 4th place Nashville Predators have 60 points. The Blues might be singing the Blues heading into the All-Star break losing four in a row now (putting them in 14th place with 51 points). Calgary’s David Moss opened up the scoring little over five minutes into the game – Blues’ goaltender Ty Conklin let up a rebound from Moss that the his own teammate Erik Johnson misplayed the puck right past his own goaltender. This marked the 259 regular season victory for Calgary’s goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff he is now 38th in the all time win list – one place above Montreal Canadiens legend Ken Dryden.
Nashville Predators 1; Vancouver Canucks 2
In a year of surprising rookie breakouts add Vancouver Cancucks Lee Sweatt to the list. Sweatt made his NHL debut last night and scored his first goal – which just happened to be the game winner and earned him the 3rd star of the night (being both teams goaltenders: Roberto Luongo was first star while Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne took the second star).
San Jose Sharks 2; Los Angeles Kings 3 (SO)
It took extra time to decide the winner in the late night California battle. Both teams having struggling season both are coming off of losing skids that saw them drop to the bottom half of the Western Conference standings. The Sharks lost six straight games; and eight of ten games since Christmas. Things have not been much better for the Kings as they lost ten of their last twelve games.
Up into the Netting
A look back at the Montreal Forum (1908-1996).
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The Hockey Spy, Christopher Ralph, takes a look at the upcoming 2011 NHL Entry Draft.
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Last minute All-Stars. The NHL filled voided spots on the All-Star roster with Carolina’s Jeff Skinner and Jamie McBain, Colorado’s Paul Stastny, and Montreal’s P.K. Subban. Earlier in the week Martin Havlat from Minnesota and Phoenx’s Keith Yandle were added to the roster to fill in for injured Tobias Enstrom and Ales Hemsky. While last week Philadelphia’s Danny Briere replaced Calgary’s captain Jarome Iginla who opted out for personal/family reasons.
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Jeremy Roenick has been added to the NHL Network’s All-Star Coverage
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Minnesota Wild will host the Detroit Red Wings on Feburary 20th which happens to be Hockey Day in America; therefore the game has been moved to a 12:30 EST start to be covered on NBC.
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At 4 p.m. today Joe Yerdon and James O’Brien the guys from Pro Hockey Talk on NBC will be hosting a live chat where they will do a mock All-Star draft. Yerdon will represent Team Lidstrom while O’Brien takes the hometown captain Eric Staal.
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Heading into the All-Star break here is a look at the NHL standings:
Eastern Conference:
Philadelphia Flyers
Tampa Bay Lightning
Boston Bruins
Pittsburgh Penguins
Washington Capitals
New York Rangers
Montreal Canadiens
Atlanta Thrashers
Carolina Hurricanes
Buffalo Sabres
Florida Panthers
Toronto Maple Leafs
Ottawa Senators
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils
Western Conference:
Vancouver Canucks
Detroit Red Wings
Dallas Stars
Nashville Predators
Anaheim Ducks
Phoenix Coyotes
Chicago Blackhawks
San Jose Sharks
Colorado Avalanche
Minnesota Wild
Los Angele Kings
Calgary Flames
Columbus Blue Jackets
St. Louis Blues
Edmonton Oilers
I wasn’t there so I can’t say that I personally know; those are the numbers the Islanders announced during the game.
Despite the announced attendance at the Islanders game, are you sure the numbers are accurate. In the past, The NHL has supposedly been known to exagerrate the number of fans that show up at each game.