National Hockey League Thursday night match roundup -NHL Feature Part 2
Montreal Canadiens try but fall down to Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3
Montreal tried hard to stay at par with Tampa Bay throughout the Thursday night, December 29, 2011, contest but the Lightning were just too fast for the Canadiens by rallying in the third for a, 4-3, victory, at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida,
United States.
Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens are now tied at the 12th number spot with 35 points, making their upcoming games extremely crucial as they continue to fight for positioning and moving up in the Eastern Conference.
Steven Stamkos opened the scoring with his 23rd of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season at the 3:43 mark of the initial period, but was quickly levelled by Montreal as Mike Cammalleri made the equaliser on their first power
play opportunity nearly midway through.
The Lightning is currently number one throughout the major league in terms of comebacks late in the games, which they certainly showed against Montreal.
"Right now we're No. 1 in the league in comebacks after two periods, which is a testament to the players' character", Tampa Bay coach, Guy Boucher, said. "You'd like to be in position to be in the lead once in a while before the third. But it's extremely
positive".
David Desharnais and Erik Cole added two straight for the Canadiens to put them up by two goals with less than eight minutes remaining in the second period while James Wyman brought Tampa Bay within reach of the score by one at the 17:38 mark.
Tampa Bay kicked off their comeback with Marc-Andre Bergeron getting his fourth in the opening two minutes while captain, Vincent Lecavalier, added the insurance goal at the 8:37 mark to take the match out of Montreal’s hands.
Mathieu Garon of Tampa Bay was outshot 34-22 as compared to his counterpart in the Montreal net, Carey Price, but still managed to block 31 shots while his competitor fell short on four.
Tampa Bay has the next at home against Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday while Montreal heads will stay in Florida to face-off against the Florida Panthers on the same day.
Minnesota Wild end eight-game slump with 4-3 victory over Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton managed to takedown Minnesota in the previous week with a dominating 4-1 victory but the Wild managed to comeback and end their eight-game slump by edging the Oilers, 4-3, on Thursday, at the sold-out Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
United States.
Oilers rookie and top 2010 NHL Entry Draft pick, Taylor Hall, finally potted his 10th goal of the season to give Edmonton an early entering the contest. Minnesota captain, Mikko Koivu, managed to level the contest with less than seven minutes
to go, after which the tensions rose and a number of players roughed each other up and were awarded with various penalties.
"We have to make sure we keep playing this kind of hockey, and if we do we're going to be fine," said Shawn Horcoff, who put the Edmonton Oilers within reach of the score by one with over 13 minutes remaining in the third and final period of regulation.
The second period resulted in the Edmonton loss as Jarod Palmer and Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored 19 seconds apart at the midway mark and Dany Heatley extended the Wild lead after Edmonton’s Ladislav Smid put up another goal for the Oilers.
Minnesota Wild has the next at home against Phoenix Coyotes while Edmonton will be facing the New York Islanders on Saturday.
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