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NHL Capsules: Stars beat Kings 5-4 in shootout
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Dallas Stars and Los Angeles Kings took another game down to the wire, reflective of the jockeying going on between the Western Conference rivals in the standings.
Loui Eriksson scored twice and then netted the deciding goal in a shootout to help the Stars rally for a 5-4 victory Thursday night that left them one point behind the Kings, who are tied with Minnesota for the eighth and final playoff spot.
"We always play tight games against L.A., but we came back pretty good and finally won the game," Eriksson said. "So it's two big points for us. It was really intense out there. I thought we took too many penalties, but we stuck with it and found a way. We played a hardworking game the whole way through."
Eriksson tied the game 4-all on a power-play goal at 14:35 of the third period. He tried to center the puck in front of the net, and the Kings' Willie Mitchell inadvertently knocked it in when he tried to clear it.
Eriksson, the Stars' second shooter in the tiebreaker, pushed the puck over the goal line as goalie Jonathan Quick fell over. Trevor Lewis then failed to connect for the Kings.
"I try to tell myself not to look at the standings, but it's a little like an addiction for me," Dallas coach Glen Gulutzen said. "Every day I'm searching them out to see if they've changed from 3 to 4 o'clock. We are playing playoff hockey. It's going to be a tough stretch here, but (games) 40 through 60, we've got to be strong."
Kari Lehtonen made 37 saves to earn his 150th NHL victory. Quick, named to his first All-Star team earlier Thursday, stopped 34 shots for the Kings.
Jack Johnson and Dustin Brown scored consecutive power-play goals to give the Kings a 4-3 lead in the third period.
"Our PK was great and they found a way to get a fluke one," Brown said. "It takes overtime and a shootout."
Johnson assisted on two second-period goals for his second straight multipoint game and third of the season. Anze Kopitar had a goal and two assists before leaving with 7:48 remaining in the third after getting tossed into the boards by Brenden Morrow.
"He told me he's fine, so we'll see what that means," Kings coach Darryl Sutter said.
Kopitar lay face down in a corner before slowly getting up and leaving under his own power. The Kings said he had an upper body injury. He was circling behind the net when he put his left shoulder into Morrow, who raised his right arm and sent Kopitar flying.
"We watched it on slo-mo and we watched it again, and in my mind, it was a clean hit," Gulutzen said. "But he fell very awkwardly into the boards. I don't know the extent of it, but I hope he's OK. I don't think anything will come of it, but that's for the league to decide."
As a result, the Kings' Mike Richards received penalties for instigating a fight, unsportsmanlike conduct, fighting and a 10-minute misconduct, while Morrow was sent off for fighting. Dallas then went on a 4-minute power play that led to Eriksson's tying goal.
"We're a very tight team. Everybody is going to stick up for each other and that was really good on his part," Justin Williams said of Richards. "It's a shame we didn't kill it off for him."
Dallas took a 2-0 lead on goals by Eriksson and Eric Nystrom 51 seconds apart in the first. Eriksson scored on a 3-on-2, and Nystrom put in his own rebound.
"It was a huge win for us," Nystrom said. "The last few games we've been just forcing plays a little bit and maybe didn't have our usual jump. But tonight we pursued the puck and were getting pucks to the net and taking what they were giving us. That really helped us out."
The Kings sandwiched goals by Kopitar and Lewis, his first of the season, around one by the Stars' Alex Goligoski, leaving Los Angeles trailing 3-2 in the second.
NOTES: Kings D Slava Voynov returned after missing four straight games with an upper body injury. ... The Stars improved to 3-1 in shootouts this season; the Kings fell to 3-5. ... Johnson has seven points in six games. ... Lewis' goal was his first since March 26, 2011. ... The Stars earned their team-record 102nd win against the Kings, surpassing the 101 they have against Detroit. ... Los Angeles scored three power-play goals in a game for the first time since March 8, 2010, against Columbus. ... The Stars are 3-2 against the Kings with one meeting left.
Other NHL Capsules
Anderson backstops Senators in win over Rangers
NEW YORK (AP) — Craig Anderson made 34 saves for his first shutout of the season, Jason Spezza scored twice, and the Ottawa Senators beat the surging New York Rangers 3-0 on Thursday night.
Milan Michalek also scored for the Senators, who have won five straight at Madison Square Garden and seven of eight there (7-0-1). New York (27-10-4), which entered with the most points in the NHL, had won five straight and 10 of 11.
Anderson's seventh career shutout came nearly two years after Ottawa's winning streak began in New York with a 2-0 victory on Jan. 14, 2010. Ottawa became one of the last teams to register a shutout this season. The Chicago Blackhawks and New York Islanders are the only remaining teams without one.
Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves for the Rangers, who had their fourth winning streak of at least five games stopped.
BRUINS 2, CANADIENS 1
BOSTON (AP) — Jordan Caron and Milan Lucic scored, and Tim Thomas stopped 33 shots to lead Boston over Montreal.
Carey Price made 28 saves for Montreal, which lost to Boston for the third straight time and fell to 3-8 since Randy Cunneyworth took over as coach.
Yannick Weber scored for the Canadiens.
Montreal won the first two matchups against the defending Stanley Cup champions, winning home-and-home games at the end of October. But since then the Bruins have won 25 of 30 games.
After the game, the Canadiens said they traded forward Michael Cammalleri to the Calgary Flames for forward Rene Bourque. Cammalleri left the game after the second period.
FLYERS 3, ISLANDERS 2
UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) — Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 33 shots, and Philadelphia beat the New York Islanders for the 26th time in 28 games.
Scott Hartnell, Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier scored for the Flyers (26-12-4), who moved within two points of the Atlantic Division-leading New York Rangers. Kyle Okposo and John Tavares scored for the Islanders.
The Flyers (26-12-4) have won 12 of 13 on Long Island during their dominant run against the Islanders. New York (15-20-6) had won three straight at home, including a 5-1 victory over Detroit on Tuesday.
Bobrovsky stopped Michael Grabner on a penalty shot 2:49 in and made a spectacular glove save on the Islanders right wing late in the second. The 23-year-old Russian has tormented the Islanders since joining the Flyers before last season, going 7-0 against New York.
RED WINGS 3, COYOTES 2, SO
DETROIT (AP) — Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg scored in the shootout, and Detroit beat Phoenix for its 13th straight home win.
Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen scored in regulation for the Red Wings, who moved within one home win of matching the team's best streak. Jimmy Howard stopped 25 shots to earn his 100th career NHL win.
Radim Vrbata, Taylor Pyatt scored regulation goals for Phoenix, and Vrbata added one in the shootout. Mike Smith made 40 saves.
HURRICANES 5, LIGHTNING 2
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jiri Tlusty had two goals and an assist, Tuomo Ruutu added a goal and two assists, and Carolina defeated Tampa Bay.
Tlusty scored twice during Carolina's four-goal first, helping the Hurricanes take a 4-1 lead. Jay Harrison and Tim Brent also scored for the Hurricanes, who had lost four of five. Eric Staal had three assists, giving him 301 in his NHL career.
Tampa Bay got goals from Nate Thompson and Teddy Purcell, but the Lightning dropped their fifth straight (0-4-1).
CANUCKS 3, BLUES 2, OT
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Daniel Sedin scored a power-play goal 46 seconds into overtime to give Vancouver a victory over St. Louis in a matchup for first place in the Western Conference.
Alexandre Burrows had two goals and drew the decisive penalty for the Canucks, who have an NHL-best 59 points — three more than St. Louis. David Backes was whistled for boarding with 19.9 seconds to go in regulation, and the Blues were in disarray in overtime after defenseman Roman Polak broke his stick shortly before Sedin beat Brian Elliott from the right faceoff dot.
Jason Arnott scored both goals for the Blues, who lead the Central Division by a point despite the end of a four-game winning streak.
PREDATORS 3, AVALANCHE 2, OT
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — David Legwand scored his second goal of the game at 4:26 of overtime, and Nashville rallied from a two-goal, first-period deficit to beat Colorado.
Legwand scored the winner on a rebound of his own shot.
The Predators have won seven straight over Colorado and nine of 10 overall in the series, dating to Feb. 4, 2010.
Legwand started the comeback with a goal in the second period, and Sergei Kostitsyn tied it in the third. Nashville has won three straight and six of seven.
Ryan O'Reilly had a goal and an assist, and Gabriel Landeskog added a goal for Colorado.
The Avalanche outshot Nashville 15-7 in the first period, but the Predators held a 35-29 edge for the game.
BLACKHAWKS 5, WILD 2
CHICAGO (AP) — Dave Bolland had two goals, and rookie Jimmy Hayes and Viktor Stalberg scored 23 seconds apart in a three-goal second period as Chicago beat Minnesota.
Bolland scored on the power play in the second and added an empty-net goal with 1:26 to play. Another Blackhawks rookie, Andrew Shaw, also had a goal.
Devin Setoguchi had the game's first goal for Minnesota, and Kyle Brodziak added a rebound tally in the third period for the Wild.
SHARKS 2, JETS 0
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Logan Couture and Brad Winchester scored, and Antti Niemi made 24 saves for his second shutout of the season in San Jose's victory over Winnipeg.
Couture scored at 13:36 of the second period, and Winchester made it 2-0 early in the third for the Sharks, who have won five of six. Couture scored for the second straight game.
Ondrej Pavelec faced 37 shots in his 36th start of the season, but the Jets lost for the fourth time in five games.
San Jose, which has earned 11 of 12 points in January, leads the Pacific Division.
FLAMES 1, DUCKS 0, OT
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Blair Jones scored his first goal with Calgary at 1:51 of overtime and Miikka Kiprusoff made 23 saves against Anaheim.
The Flames have won three in a row overall and eight straight at home, going 10-0-1 in their past 11 at the Saddledome. Their last home regulation loss was Nov. 15 against Ottawa.
Anaheim had its three-game winning streak snapped.
Kiprusoff earned his third shutout of the season and the 43rd of his career, tying him for 27th on the NHL list with Lorne (Gump) Worsley.
Jones converted a rebound of his own shot, flipping the puck over Jonas Hiller. Jones was playing in his third game with the Flames since he was acquired from Tampa Bay on Jan. 6.
Other NHL News
Canadiens send Cammalleri to Calgary for Bourque
BOSTON (AP) — Montreal traded forward Michael Cammalleri to the Calgary Flames for forward Rene Bourque on Thursday night, pulling him from the game after two periods a day after he was quoted as saying the Canadiens "play like losers."
General manager Pierre Gauthier confirmed the deal after the game against the Bruins, which Montreal lost 2-1 to fall to 3-8 since Randy Cunneyworth replaced Jacques Martin as coach.
Gauthier said he had been working on deals to make the team bigger for more than a month, and denied Cammalleri was traded because of his comments.
"No, not at all," Gauthier said. "I didn't make a big deal about all that. There's emotion around the team, somebody says something, I'd rather see emotion than people that don't care. ... He never asked to be traded or anything. He's part of the team and he cares a lot. That's why he made those comments."
The deal sends Cammalleri and Karri Rammo, a goalie playing in Europe, along with a fifth-round pick in this year's draft to Calgary for Bourque plus minor-league center Patrick Holland and a second-round pick in 2013.
Bourque, who has 13 goals and three assists this season for the Flames, has one game left on a five-game suspension for elbowing Washington's Nicklas Backstrom in the head on Jan. 3.
Cammalleri, who has nine goals and 13 assists this season, played 12 shifts over the first two periods on Thursday night but was sent back to the team hotel before the start of the third.
That's when Cunneyworth was told to keep Cammalleri out of the lineup to avoid an injury that might jeopardize the deal.
"It's just something that is not too common during a game, but he was pulled away from the ice and obviously been dealt," Cunneyworth said. "The only message is that we're trying to improve our team. Obviously, a general manager makes a deal only if he feels he's strengthening the team. We feel that will be the case. That's the only motive and we feel strongly about that."
But the trade comes one day after Cammalleri was quoted by TSN in Canada as saying, "I can't accept that we will display a losing attitude as we're doing this year. We prepare for our games like losers. We play like losers. So it's no wonder why we lose."
Before Thursday's morning skate in Boston, Cammalleri told reporters, "It's an emotional game. We're sitting in 12th spot. It's not fun to lose. You always want to do more. That's all."
He also said he loved playing for the Canadiens.
"I've just built a house in Montreal," he told reporters. "I've had somewhat of a love affair with the city. Things can change pretty quick, but not for me. I really enjoy it. My family loves it and I really enjoy what it means to play for the Canadiens. I always have."
Gauthier said the deal was made to make the Canadiens bigger; Cammalleri is 5-foot-9, 183 pounds and Bourque is 6-foot-2, weighing 213 pounds.
"We have a lot of young players that have joined the team in the last year or so and now Mr. (Raphael) Diaz is here on top of that, that are not very big," the GM said.
"We felt that if we want to improve the club we need to be bigger up front. ... That's why Mr. Bourque was a very attractive player to us, because he scores most of his goals, a great majority of his goals, from the hard areas."
-- Jimmy Golen
Leafs' Kessel is heading back to All-Star game
OTTAWA (AP) — Phil Kessel probably won't have to wait until the end of the NHL All-Star game draft to hear his name.
The Toronto forward was among the final 36 players added to the event by the league's hockey operations department Thursday, joining teammates Joffrey Lupul and Dion Phaneuf for the Jan. 29 game in Ottawa.
Kessel's participation last year in All-Star weekend is best remembered for him becoming the last selection in the inaugural draft — a somewhat embarrassing moment that included Washington star Alex Ovechkin chuckling and snapping a photo of Kessel sitting alone waiting to be picked.
"Hopefully, he's not selected last two years in a row," Lupul said Thursday. "But he got a car for it, so I mean it's not all bad, right?"
Besides, no one is laughing now.
Kessel, a former University of Minnesota star, has been among the league's most prolific players all season and entered play Thursday second overall in scoring with 48 points on 24 goals and 24 assists, two behind Vancouver forward Henrik Sedin, another All-Star selection.
In fact, the top nine scorers so far will all be in attendance, a list that includes Philadelphia's Claude Giroux, Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos, Vancouver's Daniel Sedin, Chicago's Marian Hossa, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Ottawa's Jason Spezza, along with Henrik Sedin, Kessel and Lupul.
The other selections include Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews, Corey Perry, Zdeno Chara, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Lundqvist.
"I think it means a lot," Henrik Sedin said. "It's one of those things I think you're going to look back at when you're done playing (and feel proud) that you've been to one or a few of those. That's something you can tell your grandkids."
Last year, Kessel received $20,000 for charity and a Honda CR-Z hybrid for being the last player selected in the draft that determines the game rosters.
"I've still got it," he said Thursday.
A similar bounty is expected to soften the blow for the final player selected this year.
The NHL Players' Association worked in close consultation with league executive Rob Blake on the organization of the event and players were overwhelming in favor of keeping a last man standing.
The captains and assistants in charge of selecting the squads will be announced next week. One of them is expected to be Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson, who fans previously voted into the game along with teammates Erik Karlsson, Milan Michalek and Spezza.
The Senators are the best represented team. The Canucks, Leafs, Bruins, Rangers and Blackhawks all have three players.
The Sedin twins are joined by Canucks teammate Alexander Edler while Calgary will be represented by Jarome Iginla, another potential choice to captain one of the teams. Montreal goalie Carey Price and Winnipeg defenseman Dustin Byfuglien also will also participate.
Injuries kept Edmonton forwards Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins from receiving an invite, while veteran Detroit defenseman Nick Lidstrom and Anaheim forward Teemu Selanne each asked to be overlooked.
"I've been there many times," said Selanne, a 10-time All-Star. "I honestly think for the young players it's a good opportunity."
NHL All-Stars Full Roster
The Associated Press
Jan. 29, At Ottawa
(r-Rookie)
Forwards
r-Luke Adam, Buffalo Sabres
Daniel Alfredsson, Ottawa Senators
Jamie Benn, Dallas Stars
Logan Couture, San Jose Sharks
r-Sean Couturier, Philadelphia Flyers
Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings
Marian Gaborik, New York Rangers
Claude Giroux, Philadelphia Flyers
r-Colin Greening, Ottawa Senators
r-Adam Henrique, New Jersey Devils
r-Cody Hodgson, Vancouver Canucks
Marian Hossa, Chicago Blackhawks
Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames
r-Ryan Johansen, Columbus Blue Jackets
Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks
Phil Kessel, Toronto Maple Leafs
Mikko Koivu, Minnesota Wild
r-Gabriel Landeskog, Colorado Avalanche
Joffrey Lupul, Toronto Maple Leafs
Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins
Milan Michalek, Ottawa Senators
r-Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Edmonton Oilers
Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals
Corey Perry, Anaheim Ducks
Jason Pominville, Buffalo Sabres
r-Matt Read, Philadelphia Flyers
Daniel Sedin, Vancouver Canucks
Henrik Sedin, Vancouver Canucks
Tyler Seguin, Boston Bruins
r-Craig Smith, Nashville Predators
Jason Spezza, Ottawa Senators
Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay Lightning
John Tavares, New York Islanders
Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks
Defensemen
Dustin Byfuglien, Winnipeg Jets
Brian Campbell, Florida Panthers
Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins
Alex Edler, Vancouver Canucks
r-Justin Faulk, Carolina Hurricanes
Dan Girardi, New York Rangers
Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators
r-Adam Larsson, New Jersey Devils
Dion Phaneuf, Toronto Maple Leafs
Ryan Suter, Nashville Predators
Kimmo Timonen, Philadelphia Flyers
Shea Weber, Nashville Predators
Dennis Wideman, Washington Capitals
Keith Yandle, Phoenix Coyotes
Goaltenders
Brian Elliott, St. Louis Blues
Jimmy Howard, Detroit Red Wings
Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers
Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens
Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings
Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins
Wild captain Koivu picked for NHL All-Star game
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Mikko Koivu can now call himself an NHL All-Star as well as captain of the Minnesota Wild. The 28-year-old center was named Thursday to his first All-Star game. In his seventh season in the NHL, Koivu has nine goals and a team-high 24 assists. He was the Wild's first-round draft choice in 2001.
The All-Star game is scheduled for Jan. 29, in Ottawa. The 54 players in the pool will be divided into two teams during a draft three days before. Six players were selected by fan voting, and Koivu was one of the 36 veterans picked by the league. Additionally, 12 rookies were chosen to participate.
Koivu is the seventh player in the Wild's 11 seasons to make the All-Star game. Marian Gaborik was the only two-time participant.
