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Tag: J.T. Miller

  • Zary scores in OT to lift Flames to 6-5 win over Canucks

    Zary scores in OT to lift Flames to 6-5 win over Canucks

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Connor Zary scored 1:33 into overtime and the Calgary Flames opened their season with a 6-5 comeback win over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night.

    Anthony Mantha had a goal and an assist to lead Calgary. Rasmus Andersson, Martin Pospisil, MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau also scored for the Flames, who trailed 3-0 midway through the first period.

    Brock Boeser had two goals and J.T. Miller, Daniel Sprong and Conor Garland also scored for the Canucks. Arturs Silovs stopped 20 shots for Vancouver.

    Takeaways

    Canucks: Squandered a 4-1 lead after the first period by giving up four unanswered goals to fall behind. Miller then tied it with 1:37 left in the third period.

    Flames: Dan Vladar gave up four goals on 15 shots in the first period, but allowed only one more goal and finished with 20 saves for the win.

    Key moment

    Huberdeau, under pressure this season to produce more and live up to his $10.5-million salary, scored Calgary’s fifth goal at 10:40 of the third period to give the Flames a 5-4 lead. Stationed in the blue paint, he batted in a rebound off a shot by Brayden Pachal.

    Key stat

    Calgary blocked 21 shots to Vancouver’s 12.

    Up next

    The Canucks conclude their season-opening two-game homestand against Philadelphia on Friday night, and the Flames host the Flyers on Saturday night

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    AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL

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  • Canucks top Penguins 5-1 for 2nd straight after opening skid

    Canucks top Penguins 5-1 for 2nd straight after opening skid

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Bo Horvat scored twice, Andrei Kuzmenko had a goal and an assist and the Vancouver Canucks won their second straight after a season-opening skid, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 on Friday night.

    Tanner Pearson and J.T. Miller also scored, Ilya Mikheyev had two assists and Spencer Martin made 34 saves. On Thursday night in Seattle, the Canucks beat the Kraken 5-4 to end their season-opening losing streak at a franchise-record seven games.

    “Obviously there’s a lot more energy, obviously the smiles on our faces,” Horvat said. “But I mean, we’ve got to dig ourselves out of the hole here. Obviously, we put ourselves in this situation. Just because we won two games, you can’t be satisfied. We’ve got to keep going here.”

    Rickard Rakell scored for Pittsburgh and Tristan Jarry made 24 saves. The Penguins have lost three straight in regulation to fall to 4-3-1.

    “I just don’t think we’re putting a 60-minute effort together, and it’s hard to win in this league when you don’t,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said.

    Weariness appeared to creep into the home side’s game, with the Penguins outshooting the Canucks 30-19 across the second and third periods, but Martin held fast for the victory. The 24-year-old goalie is 4-0-4 with Vancouver.

    “Eight games now and he’s gotten points in eight straight, so I haven’t seen him do anything negative,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “And that’s great when you can have your other goaltender doing that, that makes an inner competition a little bit.”

    The Canucks took a 2-1 lead into the third period and struggled in the opening minutes, fighting mightily to get out of their own zone.

    Martin said he wasn’t concerned.

    “Honestly, I don’t think they had much,” he said. “We did a fantastic job, obviously. They have a lot of firepower there. They did a good job getting behind the net, I thought, but we kept them to the perimeter. So it was a good game.”

    After the barrage, Vancouver erupted with three goals in just over seven minutes.

    Kuzmenko tipped in a long shot from defenseman Luke Schenn and Horvat scored on a power-play before Miller added an empty-netter with 2:10 remaining.

    Third-period collapses have become a trend for the Canucks this season, and Boudreau said his group appeared as if “the weight of the world was lifted off (their) shoulders” after weathering the adversity.

    “Every other third period has been like ‘Oh, what’s gonna happen that’s negative?’” Boudreau said. “And I think once we got through the first three minutes, and it was like, ‘OK, let’s go.’ And everybody just played. … And I thought it was really good.”

    TRADE ADDITIONS

    Vancouver acquired defenseman Ethan Bear and forward Lane Pederson from Carolina a few hours before the game for a fifth-round draft pick. The 25-year-old Bear has not played this season after finishing with five goals and nine assists in 58 games for the Hurricanes last season. Carolina will retain $400,000 of Bear’s $2.2 million contact. Pederson, also 25, is scoreless in four games this season for the Chicago Wolves in the American Hockey League.

    UP NEXT

    Penguins: At Seattle on Saturday night.

    Canucks: Host New Jersey on Tuesday night.

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    AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Connor McDavid opens with hat trick, Oilers beat Canucks 5-3

    Connor McDavid opens with hat trick, Oilers beat Canucks 5-3

    EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid had three goals and an assist and the Edmonton Oilers overcame an early 3-0 deficit to beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 on Wednesday night.

    Leon Draisaitl added a goal and two assists and Darnell Nurse also scored for the Oilers in the opener for both teams. Jack Campbell made 33 saves.

    “It wasn’t according to anyone’s script, for sure,” said Edmonton head coach Jay Woodcroft. “I don’t think we were sharp. I don’t think we were in sync early. We found a way to win the game, that’s a really good sign, but we can be better.”

    Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Andrei Kuzmenko — in his NHL debut — scored for the Canucks. Thatcher Demko stopped 20 shots.

    Pettersson and Miller scored in an early 51-second span and Kuzmenko made it 3-0 39 seconds into the second on a power play. He’s the first player in Canucks history to score a power-play goal in his debut.

    “That was pretty disappointing, I thought we came out pretty good in the first and special teams kind of cost us the game,” said Canucks defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. “The power play wasn’t good enough and we couldn’t keep the puck out of our net on the (penalty kill).”

    Edmonton got on the board 4:12 into the second when Draisaitl took a deflected pass at the side of the net and slammed it past Demko on a power play.

    The Oilers pulled within a goal with another power-play goal with 5:59 left in the second on a three-way passing play from Zach Hyman to Draisaitl and then to McDavid.

    “It was just not a good start for our group. It was the first game and maybe there was a little bit of jitters,” McDavid said. “It is not going to be perfect every night. You are not going to have the game you want every night and sometimes you get a win with your ‘B’ or ‘C’ game. It was certainly not our ‘A’ game to start, but we found a way to get our legs going and get ourselves back in it.”

    Edmonton pulled even with 41 seconds left in the period on a 2-on-1 short-handed break as Draisaitl fed it across to Nurse, who beat Demko with a one-timer.

    The Oilers took the lead with 4:59 left in the third period with McDavid orchestrating a give-and-go with Hyman before depositing his own rebound past Demko. It was McDavid’s 700th career point, making him the sixth-fastest player to hit the mark in 488 games.

    McDavid completed the hat trick with 25 seconds left when Evander Kane dropped it back to him for an empty-net power-play goal.

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    More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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