TAMPA
Rasmus Andersson Jersey Womens , Fla. — A matchup of early-season conference powers takes place Saturday when the Eastern Conference leading Tampa
Bay Lightning host the Western Conference leading Colorado Avalanche at Amalie
Arena.The Lightning enter the game winners of five straight and sit four points
ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs atop the conference standings. The Avalanche
have won seven of their past eight on the road and sit tied with Nashville on
top of the West standings.It will be a matchup of Tampa Bay’s impressive depth
up and down the lineup against Colorado’s trio of Mikko Rantanen, Nathan
MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog, which will be back together after being broken
up at the end of Thursday’s victory at Florida.Article continues below ...The
Avalanche top line has combined for 48 goals and 124 points through 29 games.
Rantanen leads the league with 47 points and 35 assists while MacKinnon is
second with 44 points.But for the third period against Florida, with the game
tied 2-2, Colorado head coach Jared Bednar split up the top line, moving J.T.
Compher to that top line and moving Rantanen to the second line. The Avalanche
went on to win the game 5-2, with Compher scoring the tie-breaking
goal.“Whenever coach puts you out with guys of that caliber it’s exciting,”
Compher told NHL.com. “It was a great opportunity for me, and seeing how hard
those guys work, they dog pucks all the time. I just tried to get out there to
get on the forecheck trying to create turnovers, and we had a real good shift,
pinned them in their zone and were able to get a goal.”That type of work ethic,
Bednar felt, was not up to par
William Nylander Jersey , which prompted the switch to start the third period.“I felt like our top guys were struggling to kind of gain some traction,”
Bednar told NHL.com. “They did have their chances, they scored on Mikko’s tip
(in the first period) and they were doing some good things, but the regular
traction that I expect out of that line wasn’t there. I thought maybe I flip
them [and] sometimes you can get a spark, and if I didn’t like it I could just
move it back real quick.”Bednar told BSNDenver.com on Friday that the trio would
be back together to begin Saturday’s game against the Lightning, while
goaltender Semyon Varlamov starts in goal.Tampa Bay, meanwhile, has a deep group
of forwards that features five players who have already reached double digits in
goal, led by Brayden Point who is tied for the league lead with 21 goals.
Linemate Nikita Kucherov is third in league scoring with 43 points.The Lightning
also have seven players with at least 20 points and 10 players with at least
five goals scored through 30 games.“It’s definitely a strength on our team,”
said Lightning goaltender Louis Domingue, who is 9-2 in 11 starts since the loss
of No. 1 goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. “We saw it when some of our best players got
injured, someone else jumped in the lineup and did a good job. It’s even guys
that aren’t playing right now, when they come in, they are ready to
go
Zach Hyman Jersey , and they do a good job.” LAS VEGAS (AP) — St. Louis forward David Perron has zero points in two games against the Vegas Golden
Knights.He has two wins, though.Perron made an emotional return to Vegas and
Ryan O’Reilly scored twice to lead the Blues over the Golden Knights 4-1 on
Friday night. Brayden Schenn and Oskar Sundqvist also scored for St. Louis.“It’s
fun from the warm-up on to the last minute,” said Perron, who had a career-best
66 points with Vegas last season. “Obviously a lot of energy in this crowd and
it’s always fun coming here. I got so many messages. … I feel the love from this
city for sure.”Perron, who set the NHL record for most assists (50) by a player
on an expansion team with the Golden Knights before signing with St. Louis as a
free agent, made it no secret he wanted to re-sign with Vegas, but couldn’t come
to terms with the club during the offseason.“It’s unfortunate how it worked
out,” Perron said. “I still wish it could’ve been different.”While the Blues
improved to 2-0-0 against Vegas and 4-1-0 against the Pacific Division this
season, the Golden Knights are struggling to find the same magic they had during
last year’s run to the Stanley Cup Final.Vegas had scored four or more goals in
three of its past four games but was shut down by Jake Allen. The Blues goalie
stopped 32 shots after allowing three or more goals in five of his previous six
outings.“We know what kind of team they are,” Allen said. “We played them a
couple of weeks ago … very offensive, very opportunistic team. They usually get
their chances most games and we were able to shut them down.”William Carrier
scored for the Golden Knights, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 31 saves.After posting
a career-best 2.24 goals against average last season, Fleury’s 2.52 GAA is his
second-highest since the 2009-10 season.Sundqvist, who has six goals in his
79-game career
Alex Burmistrov Jersey , has scored three of them against Fleury this season, also scoring two on Nov. 1 in a 5-3 win at St. Louis.“It’s been working
against Vegas so far this season,” Sundqvist said “I’ve gotten a lot of help
with all the goals from my linemates and D-men. I don’t know why it’s been
working, especially against Fleury, because I never scored on him
before.”Moments after Vegas opened the scoring with Carrier’s breakaway goal
against Allen, the Blues tied it when O’Reilly flipped it just under Fleury’s
arm.St. Louis took a 2-1 lead in the second period when O’Reilly deflected Jaden
Schwartz’s shot from the right wing. Schenn scored off a faceoff for a 3-1 lead
later in the period, and Sundqvist scored 59 seconds later.The Golden Knights
have been outscored in the second period 28-17.“It’s early in the season I know,
but this has happened way too often,” center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. “I
think the coaches probably have a better answer than I will have. It’s one bad
bounce and then suddenly we’re two or three behind. I really couldn’t pinpoint
what is going on. But it seems to happen every time in the second.”NOTES: The
Golden Knights played their final game without suspended defenseman Nate
Schmidt, who sat the first 20 games for violating the league’s Performance
Enhancing Substances Program. … Gunnarsson left the game with an upper-body
injury and did not return. … Vladimir Tarasenko had two assists and has a point
in seven of his last nine games. … St. Louis is now 3-0-2 against the Golden
Knights since the start of last season. … O’Reilly leads the Blues with 10 goals
and 23 points.UP NEXTBlues: Travels to play San Jose on SaturdayGolden Knights:
Visits Edmonton on Sunday.
