Yeah baby the NHL is back for a brand new season. There was 4 games on opening night starting with the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals taking on the Boston Bruins.
Boston Bruins 0 @ Washington Capitals 7
People sometimes talk about champions hangover. I guess the Capitals haven’t heard the term before as they exploded the Bruins on opening night. The goal scorers were obviously all from the Capitals and they were as follows. Evgeny Kuznetsov had 2, and the players with 1 were T.J. Oshie, John Carlson, Alexander Ovechkin, Nic Dowd, and Lars Eller. The goalies were at a mismatch this time around as Braydon Holtby had a perfect 1.000 SV% on 25 shots. Tuukka Rask on the other side had a .737 SV% on 19 shots and backup Jaroslav Halak had a .889 SV% on 18 shots.
Montreal Canadiens 2 @ Toronto Maple Leafs 3
The oldest rivalry in the league must always lead us off in a new NHL season. How great as well that we got a little overtime with these 2 rivals. This close contest had goals on both sides so let’s start with the visiting Canadiens. The 2 of their goals came from Artturi Luhkonen and Andrew Shaw. The Leafs put up 3 on the board, 2 from Auston Matthews and 1 from John Tavares. Both goalies had respectable nights, starting with Carey Price who had a .885 SV% on 26 shots. The winning goalie Frederik Andersen put up a .944 SV% on 36 shots.
Calgary Flames 2 @ Vancouver Canucks 5
From the best rivalry in the East to arguably the best in the West as the Flames and Canucks have a history of genuine dislike of one another. The Flames haven’t won an opening night game since 2009, and with a revamped roster were looking to change that against Vancouver. The Flames 2 goals from Matthew Tkachuk and Sean Monahan weren’t enough to break the streak as Vancouver scored 5. Those goals were lead by rookie Elias Pettersson who scored his first career goal. The other Canuck goal scorers were Nikolay Glodobin, Brenden Leipsic, Tyler Motte, and Jake Virtanen. The Flames had Mike Smith in net who put up a .818 SV% on 22 shots. The Canucks killed off 8 powerplays in the game and largely due to Jacob Markstrom who had a .943 SV% on 35 shots.
Anaheim Ducks 5 @ San Jose Sharks 2
Here we go, it’s the first game for Erik Karlsson in a Sharks uniform. Unfortunately for him and the Sharks the debut didn’t pan out so well for Karlsson as the Ducks seemed to roll. The Ducks had goals by committee as all 5 came from different players. The players with goals were Rickhard Rackell, Adam Henrique, Max Comtois, Brandon Montour, and Carter Rowney. The 2 San Jose goals came from Tomas Hertl and Evander Kane. Anaheim was not just good on the score sheet but in net as well as John Gibson had a .939 SV% on 33 shots. It was a very forgettable game for Martin Jones on the other end who had a .714 SV% on 14 shots.
Be sure to keep tabs on more NHL updates. Due to the sheer number of games the format is being experimented on so your feedback will help a ton.
