The Sabres had their 10-game winning streak snapped by the Lightning, Nick Schmaltz scored his first goal as a member of the Coyotes, Cam Atkinson extended his point streak to nine games, Nikolaj Ehlers scored a hat trick as the Jets downed the Blackhawks, Valtteri Filppula suited up for the 900th game of his NHL career, and Bruins great Rick Middleton had his No. 16 raised to the rafters at TD Garden.
It was an eventful night on the ice. Here are three things we learned Thursday in the NHL.
Laine is hockey’s Mr. November
Patrik Laine is having a November to remember. The Winnipeg Jets star winger scored the 100th and 101st goals of his young NHL career in a 6-5 win over Chicago and joined some elite company in the process.
The 20-year-old became the fourth-youngest player to hit the 100-goal plateau behind only Wayne Gretzky, Jimmy Carson and Brian Bellows.
Laine ended up scoring a whopping 18 goals in November (to go along with his whopping one assist) and that puts him in rare company. He’s just the fifth player since the 1989-90 season to score 18 or more goals in a single month.
The current streak he’s on also happens to be one of the more impressive short-term streaks in NHL history. The Finn now has 13 goals in his past six games thanks in large part to his five-goal effort earlier in the week against the Blues.
Laine now leads the NHL with 18 multi-goal games since his rookie campaign in 2016-17. In fact, since he entered the league his 101 goals are tops among all players. Alex Ovechkin had the lead with 100 until Laine’s effort Thursday. His 0.56 goals-per-game rate is also the best in the NHL during that stretch among players that have played more than 22 games. Auston Matthews (0.55), Ovechkin (0.53) and Evgeni Malkin (0.51) are the only other players that have averaged more than a goal every other game.
“It feels like a lot of my shots are going in and that’s why I’m trying to shoot every time I get the chance,” Laine, who sits ninth in the NHL with 98 shots on goal this season, told reporters following the game.
Duchene, Wheeler, Kucherov are money on home ice
Matt Duchene, Blake Wheeler and Nikita Kucherov each had multi-point nights in front of their home crowds Thursday, which has them tied for the league lead in points on home ice so far this season with 22.
Wheeler added three more apples to his already impressive total, while Kucherov had a goal and an assist.
Duchene entered the night having recorded 20 points at Canadian Tire Centre and added a goal and an assist to bring his total to 22. His goal was a beauty, too.
So here's this… we're still trying to figure out how he tracked that puck. pic.twitter.com/tCXDo94Ebl
— NHL (@NHL) November 30, 2018
Hill makes Coyotes history
Adin Hill made his fifth career start Thursday and earned his first NHL shutout as the Arizona Coyotes blanked the Preds 3-0. At 22 years and 203 days old, Hill became the youngest member of the Coyotes to earn a shutout since the franchise relocated from Winnipeg to Arizona in the mid-1990s.
Hill had faced six total shots in two relief appearances this season prior to Thursday. He stopped all six of those shots and all 29 he faced in Nashville, so the 2015 third-round pick is perfect so far this season.
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