Tampa Bay’s Triplets are doing fine now that they’re separated, both Canadian teams in action lost, and Sidney Crosby is the league’s best player since Christmas.
Here are three things we learned in the NHL Friday.
The new Triplets are the new hotness
It’s been a tough year for the Tampa Bay Lightning line known as the Triplets. Injuries to Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson have made their encore to last season’s breakout flop unceremoniously.
While Nikita Kucherov has enjoyed another spectacular season, the trio has been split up for much of the campaign.
Palat has found a new home on Steven Stamkos’s line while Alex Killorn has filled in alongside Kucherov and Johnson. The success of the new Triplets line was apparent Friday, making fans forget about Triplets Vol. 1 quicker than the new Vivian on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Johnson, Kucherov and Killorn combined for seven points and were producing highlights like this all night long in a 6-3 Lightning win.
Palat, meanwhile, is doing just fine on his own:
The formerly injured Johnson and Palat are coming around, according to head coach Jon Cooper.
The Bolts had a celebrity mascot on hand to cheer them on, without megaphone unfortunately.
Sid’s hot and is getting stuck that way
After a sluggish start to his 11th season, Sidney Crosby is on fire emoji. He has the longest active point scoring streak in the NHL at the moment at nine games and scored Friday to extend his goal-scoring streak to five games.
In fact, he hasn’t known a goal-scoring streak this long since…
He now sits at 899 career points, one point behind Tony Amonte for 105th all-time.
Just so you know, the Lightning-Penguins game wasn’t all offence. Jeff Zatkoff who, yes, relieved Marc-Andre Fleury after he allowed four goals, stymied the Bolts with this preposterous paddle save.
Jets Helle-bungle first period
The ice was still wet when the Winnipeg Jets were down and out against the Carolina Hurricanes Friday night. Actually, the Canes scored twice more as I typed this sentence.
Carolina scored four goals on nine shots in the first period, with three coming in the first five minutes when goaltender Connor Hellebuyck was pulled.
The Jets were valiant in their effort to get back into this one but fell short, losing 5-3. Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward made 33 saves in his first start since missing time due to a concussion.
Meanwhile, Hurricanes defenceman Justin Faulk has quietly had his best season in the NHL, scoring again on Friday.
