Canucks stun Jackets late
COLUMBUS, Ohio — None of Vancouver’s three goals on Tuesday night were particularly pretty. Two bounced in off skates, and the other caromed into the net off the backside of Columbus goalie Joonas Korpisalo.
The Canucks will take them. After trailing most of the game, they scored all three in the third period to beat Columbus 3-2 and win their third straight game after losing 12 of 13.
“I felt like all our goals were greasy ones tonight,” said Vancouver winger Jake Virtanen, who scored the game-winner off Korpisalo with just under two minutes left. “None of them were nice shots or anything like that, so it was nice to have that tonight. We don’t really get those often.”
Josh Leivo and Elias Pettersson also scored, and Jacob Markstrom stopped 34 shots for Vancouver.
The Blue Jackets scored 47 seconds into the game, when Seth Jones’ shot from the high slot glanced off the Canucks’ Jay Beagle and past Markstrom’s glove.
After a scoreless second period, Leivo got a deflection off his skate 8:11 into the third to make it 1-1.
Oliver Bjorkstrand snapped a shot over Markstrom’s shoulder less than two minutes later to give the Blue Jackets the lead again.
That held until a shot by Alexander Edler from just below the blue line bounced off two of his teammates’ skates and past Korpisalo with 3:04 left. Pettersson was credited with the tally.
“One of my luckiest goals,” said Pettersson, who with an assist on Leivo’s goal has three goals and seven assists in the last four games.
Virtanen then found the back of the net for the winner.
“It’s nice when your team gets rewarded for sticking with it,” Vancouver coach Travis Green said.
Korpisalo had 22 saves for the Blue Jackets, who have lost four of their last five and dropped their last three at home as they entered a stretch of five home games in nine days.
“It was a really good game from our team, just unlucky at the end,” Columbus captain Nick Foligno said.
Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella wasn’t down either. He knows that some nights the bounces just don’t go the right way when a team is struggling.
“We had some really good chances to maybe go up by two, didn’t finish a couple times,” he said. “But that’s the way it’s going for us right now. Three really funky goals.”
Wild 7, Canadiens 1
ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Matt Dumba scored twice, Devan Dubnyk made 28 saves and the Minnesota Wild took out some recent frustrations on the Montreal Canadiens in a 7-1 victory Tuesday night.
The Wild scored four times in the second period to recover from a lousy swing through Western Canada, when Minnesota dropped two of three and lost captain Mikko Koivu to injury.
Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Eric Staal, Jared Spurgeon and Zach Parise also scored for Minnesota (16-12-2), which went 4-for-4 on the power play.
Jeff Petry scored for Montreal (15-11-5), which ended a threegame winning streak.
Antii Niemi made 17 saves before giving way to Carey Price.
Oilers 6, Avalanche 4
DENVER — Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored twice as part of Edmonton’s four-goal second period, Mikko Koskinen stopped 39 shots and the Oilers extended their winning streak to four games with a 6-4 victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.
Connor McDavid added a goal and an assist as the Oilers improved to 8-2-1 since coach Ken Hitchcock took over on Nov. 20.
Kyle Brodziak scored his first goal in more than a month, Leon Draisaitl added another in his 300th NHL game and defenceman Darnell Nurse got into the scoring act with a slap shot in the third.
Mikko Rantanen, the league’s leading scorer, had two goals and two assists.