A couple of teams on historic win streaks are on a collision course, Christmas dinner left a few teams napping to start the evening, and one star is scoring almost a goal per game.
Here are four things we learned in the NHL Tuesday.
Slow starts… fast starts?
Whether it was overeating at Christmas or the extra rest for some, there sure was a lot of scoring early in games Tuesday night.
The New Jersey Devils scored 1:18 into their contest with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and were up 2-1 before the 10-minute mark. The Ottawa Senators scored a pair in the first 3:10 of their game against the New York Rangers. The Columbus Blue Jackets tallied three minutes into their match against the Boston Bruins, and broke out to a 3-0 lead before 10 minutes had passed.
All in all, 14 goals were scored in the opening 10 minutes of NHL games Tuesday. Watch this early marker where Taylor Hall undresses the Penguins’ defence.
CBJ extend streak to 13
Until further notice, the Columbus Blue Jackets’ win streak will be A Thing.
As mentioned above, CBJ jumped out to an early lead in this one, making it look inevitable that they would push their win streak to an astounding 13 games. They made it interesting, however, giving up three straight goals to the Bruins. The NHL’s top power play unit came through late though and the Jackets hung on.
Columbus is now 12-0 in December with two games remaining in the month.
And if you haven’t gotten on the Zach Werenski train yet, catch up with what this remarkable rookie is up to.
Thirteen wins is not enough to make John Tortorella happy, however. Just listen to his 90-second post-game presser.
You’d think you couldn’t stay mad at your team’s sloppy effort after seeing this kind of effort from Matt Calvert:
The Penguins hold the all-time record with 17 straight wins in 1992-93.
Crosby halfway to 50
Speaking of the Penguins, Sidney Crosby is still scoring goals all day, nearly every day.
In his 30th game of the season, Crosby scored his 25th goal in a 5-2 win over the Devils.
It’s hard not to think of and compare Crosby’s performance this season to the one he had in 2010-11 before he suffered a concussion. That concussion. That season, Crosby scored 32 goals and 66 points in 44 games for a points-per-game average of 1.61 (or 0.73 goals per game). Daniel Sedin was closest to him that year with a P/PG of 1.27.
Wayne Gretzky is first all-time with a P/PG of 1.92.
In 2016-17, Crosby leads the NHL with 1.37 points per game, well ahead of the second-best mark of 1.18 by Steven Stamkos. His goals-per-game rate is an unbelievable 0.83.
Incredibly, he and two of his teammates are 1-2-3 in the league in points for the month of December.
Meanwhile, Evgeni Malkin notched his 800th career point on a setup from…Crosby.
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Wild streak now at 11
The Minnesota Wild have something going on themselves.
The sister expansion franchise to the Blue Jackets in 2000, the Wild are riding their own winning streak which now stands at 11 after Tuesday’s overtime victory over the Nashville Predators.
Minnesota is now 11-0-1 in December but it’s the numbers within the streak that are most impressive. According to Minnesota Wild PR, during the 11-game streak, the Wild have outscored opponents 41-18, have allowed two goals or less in 10 of those, and boast a 93.8 per cent penalty kill rate.
In the process, goaltender Devan Dubnyk has set a franchise record for Wild netminders with nine straight wins. He hasn’t allowed more than three goals in a game all year.
The best part about the Wild and Blue Jackets building up these streaks is that they play each other on New Year’s Eve. Each team has one game in between then and now.
