David Pastrnak scored a hat trick (three goals in the same game) late in the match to help the Boston Bruins win against Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. It was Boston’s 59th victory of the season, and if they win three more out of their remaining six games, they’ll break the NHL record for most wins set by either Detroit (in 1996) or Tampa Bay (in 2019).
David Pastrnak scored three goals giving him a total of 56 on the season, which was enough to put him over 100 points in his career. Charlie McAvoy also scored while Jeremy Swayman saved 21 shots and Boston got their win of the ninth out of 10 games.
Bryan Rust had two goals for Pittsburgh and this was his first multi-goal game since February 1 2022 against Washington. Jake Guentzel then tied up the score with 7:30 left inregulation by scoring his 35th goal of the season. Finally,Tristan Jarry blocked 31 shots.
Paul Stastny and Antti Raanta helped the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-0 in an exciting match. Paul got a goal and an assist, while Raanta kept the opposing team from scoring by making fourteen saves! Other goals were made by Sebastian Aho and Brady Skjei, helping the Hurricanes snap their three game losing streak and get their second win in six games. With this win, Raanta earned his nineteenth career shutout, proving why he is such a great player!
Sam Montembault made a record of 47 saves for the Canadiens, but they still lost their third game in a row. The Carolina team outshot Montreal by 18 shots in the first two periods and 14 shots in the third period.
The Kings defeated the Kraken 3-1 with Pheonix Copley making 25 saves. Sean Durzi, Carl Grundstrom and Kevin Fiala all scored goals helping to move Los Angeles closer to qualifying for playoffs.
The team from Los Angeles won, so Seattle may not have a chance of beating them in the standings. The Los Angeles team is now eight points ahead with only six games left to play and The Kraken (the Seattle Team) has a game in hand. It looks like they’ll need one of the two wild card spots to get into the playoffs.
Oliver Bjorkstrand broke Copley’s no-goal record 11 minutes before the end of the game, while Martin Jones got 16 saves for Kraken.
In other news, Maple Leafs beat Senators 3-0.
Ilya Samsonov from Toronto was able to block every shot he faced and made it his tenth career shutout! Michael Bunting, William Nylander, and Radim Zohorna all got one goal each for the Maple Leafs. Meanwhile, Mads Sogaard let in three goals in the first two periods for Ottawa, which was followed by Cam Talbot blocking four shots in the remaining 20 minutes. In the end, it was Toronto who won 4-1 against the Wild!
Chandler Stephenson scored a goal and an assist to give Las Vegas a victory over Minnesota in a game between top teams. Ben Hutton, Zach Whitecloud, Brett Howden and Jack Eichel also added points for the Golden Knights. Their goalie, Laurent Broissoit had 29 saves. The Wild’s Matt Boldy got a goal, and Marc-Andre Fleury – who used to play for the Golden Knights – made 35 stops. Fleury had been really great recently with 8 wins, 1 tie and 2 goals against in 9 matches before this one.
The Avalanche and the Stars will play against each other again on Monday night in Minnesota. The Avalanche did well by beating the Stars 5-2! Nathan MacKinnon was very helpful as he scored two goals, Mikko Rantanen chipped in with a goal and three assists, Logan O’Connor and Valeri Nichushkin also scored for Colorado, and Alexandar Georgiev helped keeping 26 shots from Dallas’s side away. After this victory the Avalanche have won 10 out of the last 12 games and have tied with Dallas in second place of the Central Division standing – only one point behind first placed Minnesota.
Tyler Seguin and Joe Pavelski scored goals, while Jason Robertson assisted them with two helps. The Stars goalkeeper, Jake Oettinger, kept 27 shots away from the goal.
Alex Tuch got himself a hat trick (a fancy way of saying that he scored three goals) and Jeff Skinner added another goal plus an assist in Buffalo’s match against Philadelphia. Jordan Greenway and Kyle Okposo chipped in more to the win for Buffalo with their own goals, while Casey Mittelstadt supported his teammates by helping out those scores with three assists. Finally, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen held them all off with 39 saves!
Morgan Frost and Travis Konecny both scored for Philadelphia. Felix Sandstrom made 23 saves. Sadly, the Flyers were eliminated from the playoffs as they had the seventh fewest points in all of the National Hockey League (NHL).
The New Jersey Devils won 6-3 against the Chicago Blackhawks. Dougie Hamilton, Erik Haula, Jesper Boqvist and Timo Meier each got a goal and an assist in helping their team grab their second victory in a row.
Ryan Graves scored, and Dawson Mercer added a goal to the empty net. This win moved the Devils up to 104 points and they stayed just one point behind the Carolina team that is leading in their division. Jack Hughes, who is 21 years old and the top scorer for New Jersey, got two more assists. Finally, Mackenzie Blackwood saved 14 shots.
Andreas Athanasiou got a goal and an assist in the game, while Tyler Johnson scored for the 3rd time in a row and Lukas Reichel managed to deflect a goal. Alex Stalock blocked his 34th shot of the game.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Toews was back after not playing for two months due to medical reasons.
Then, Tampa Bay Lightning scored 5 goals without anything being returned by New York Islanders resulting in a huge win with 5-0 score!
Tampa Bay, in Florida, won their sixth playoff berth. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 38 shots, while Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos scored 1:48 apart during the middle of the second period. Mikhail Sergachev, Tanner Jeannot, and Brayden Point all got goals too. Over his last three games including this one and four overall in this season, Vasilevskiy has gotten two shutouts and only allowed one goal in Tampa Bay’s current three-game winning streak. They will next play Toronto in the first round of the postseason playoffs.
The Islanders team has two more points on the scoreboard than the Florida team and is currently in first place. Their goalie, Ilya Sorokin, was taken out after he let four goals go in during a match against the Lightning from 8:15 left in the second. On the other side, Nashville’s Tommy Novak scored one goal and had three assists which helped lead to their victory of 6-1 against St. Louis Blues.
Luke Evangelista scored a goal, helped in two more goals and Juuse Saros managed to block 21 shots. This big help from all these players allowed the Predators to win two out of three games.
The Predators still have a chance at getting into playoffs. They are three points behind the second wild card spot which is currently held by Winnipeg. The Predators have one less game played than their opponent Winnipeg though still holding onto the hope of making it into playoffs.
Calle Rosen scored a goal and Thomas Greiss stopped many shots for the Blues in their game. Even though they had been doing well by winning four out of five games before, they lost this one which almost put them out of being able to compete in the playoffs anymore.
In another game, Noah Gregor got an impressive three goals, Kyle Criscuolo and Danil Guschin both scored their first NHL goals ever, so San Jose beat Arizona.
The Sharks called up Criscuolo and Gushchin from the minor leagues on Saturday. This led to them winning their third game in a row after nine straight losses. They were at the bottom of the NHL rankings but Chicago and Columbus now have the same number of losses as them.
Jacob Peterson and Logan Couture scored for San Jose in their game, with Peterson getting his first score of the season. Erik Karlsson had four assists in this match, which made him break a record by achieving 95 points for the season. Nico Sturm helped Gregor by giving him two goals. Kaapo Kahkonen used 29 shots to help San Jose win the game.
Arizona lost the game 6-0 and it was their seventh loss in a row. The goalie for Arizona, Ivan Prosvetov, made 24 saves but couldn’t prevent them from losing. In another match, Edmonton won and clinched their spot in the playoffs for the fourth time in a row. Leon Draisaitl scored three goals for them while Connor McDavid had one goal and an assist.
Zach Hyman got a goal and an assist, Darnell Nurse scored too, and Mattias Ekholm had two assists which helped Edmonton get its fourth win in a row. They also became unbeaten for 10 games (9-0-1). Jack Campbell made 36 saves and shut out their opponents – the first since last April 26 against Detroit.
John Gibson was pulled from the game for Anaheim in the third period after 5 goals were scored on him out of 36 shots. Lukas Dostal came in and saved 8 shots instead.
In a totally different game, Carter Verhaeghe scored 4 goals to reach a total of 40 this season while Alex Lyon stayed focused and shutout the opposition with 21 saves. This earned Florida a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Sam Reinhart scored one goal, had two assists and Nick Cousins and Eric Staal also got to score too. Anthony Duclair and Aleksander Barkov each helped out with three assists which helped the Panthers win their third game in a row away from home.
Their victory gives the Panthers just one more point than the Pittsburgh team so they are now second in line for winning the wild card tournament that they have five games left to compete in.
Michael Hutchinson blocked 42 shots for the Columbus Blue Jackets, but they still lost the game and were shut out from scoring. This has happened five times so far this season and it seems like the Blue Jackets have been on a losing streak- four losses in a row! The bad news is that the team shares the worst record with Chicago in the whole NHL.