Jackets and Wings turning things around

Both the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets started the regular season with losses in their first two games. For both, that seems like a long time ago now.

While the offense is starting to come around, stellar goaltending has helped in a huge way for both clubs.

The Blue Jackets entered the weekend as the only NHL team without a point, but to be fair, the club had just the two losses under its belt while most NHL teams were entering games four and five already.

The Blue Jackets got off of the shnide with a big 3-2 margin on home ice against the always tough Chicago BlackHawks Friday, (Oct. 21) and then got a 32-save shutout from Sergei Bobrovsky Saturday and a 3-0 win on the road in Dallas against the host Stars.

The Red Wings meanwhile entered the weekend with a 2-2 record having also bounced back from an 0-2 start to the season. A 5-3 win against the visiting Nashville Predators pushed the team over .500 for the first time and a 3-0 shutout the following night at the Joe against the San Jose Sharks has the Wings entering this week riding a four-game winning streak.

The Wings, Jackets and Hawks were the only Midwest teams in action on Friday but all five played on Saturday. While the Jackets and Wings were picking up wins, the Hawks returned home to earn a 6-5 victory in shootout against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the St. Louis Blues picked up a 6-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks in Vancouver while the Minnesota Wild fell 2-1 to the New Jersey Devils on the road.

The Wild was the lone Midwest club in action Sunday, dropping a 6-3 decision to the New York Islanders.

BlackHawks 2 at Blue Jackets 3

The Jackets entertained the Hawks in its third straight home game to open the season at Nationwide Arena and the Jackets team was clearly ready to break into the win column, holding a 17-10 edge in shots in a wild first period.

The lone goal of the frame came just past the halfway mark as rookie defenseman Zach Werenski notched his second of the season with a wrister through a crowded that Corey Crawford got a piece, but not enough of, early into a Jackets’ powerplay.

Another rookie, Tyler Motte, promoted to the top line due to injury to Marian Hossa took advantage of his situation, firing home the rebound after a backhand attempt by captain Jonathan Toews for his first NHL goal in the third minute of the middle period but the Jackets struck back a little over two minutes on another powerplay. Captain Nick Foligno backhanded home the rebound of a one-timer point shot by Werenski. The original feed came from Cam Atkinson.

Before the end of the middle frame, William Karlsson tipped a point shot by David Savard past Crawford to give the home side a 3-1 cushion.

The Hawks pulled one back early in the third as Gustav Forsling dumped in what appeared a harmless bouncing shot only to have Richard Panik get his stick on it and drill it past Bobrovsky for his fifth goal of the young season.

That was as close as the Hawks got in this one though, Bobrovsky turning aside 32 of 34 for the win in goal and Crawford saving 25 in goal for the Hawks.

Predators 3 at Wings 5

The Wings and Predators played through a scoreless opening period at the Joe Louis Arena, both teams striking of a pair in the middle period.

Justin Abdelkader opened the scoring 5:17 into the middle stanza on a powerplay firing home the rebound of a point shot by defenseman Ryan Sproul who picked up an assist for his first NHL point.

PK Subban hammered a one-timer home from near the blue line on a Predators powerplay at the 14:13 mark and 18 seconds later, Mike Ribiero added another on the same powerplay, getting to a rebound and making a deke move to his backhand to put the Preds in front.

The Wings tied the score in the final minute of the period as Drew Miller scored his second goal in two games from a weird angle after Pekka Rinne made a blocker save on a shot by Mike Green.

Tomas Tatar notched his first of the season put the Wings in front 70 seconds into the third, taking a feed from Jonathan Ericsson at the blue line and making a move around a defender before beating Rinne low on the stick side. Gustav Nyquist also notched his first of the year just past the halfway mark, stealing the puck off of a Nashville defender at the blue line and then firing a shot over the blocker of Rinne.

Mike Fisher got one back for the Preds with 4:46 to go but Darren Helm fired his fourth of the season into an empty net with 22 seconds to play clinching the win for the Wings.

Petr Mrazek collected the win with a 30 save effort and for the first time this season, the Wings outshot its opponent, Rinne peppered with 42 shots in the contest.

Blue Jackets 3 at Stars 0

Bobrovsky turned aside every one of the 32 shots he faced at American Airlines Center on Saturday for the shutout win.

Josh Anderson scored the game winning goal 16:04 into the second finishing off a great passing play from the side of the goal that also involved Seth Jones and Boone Jenner.

That goal proved enough but Scott Hartnell added some insurance 9:02 into the third and Matt Calvert clinched it with his goal with 1:12 to play into an empty net. Kari Lehtonen made 23 saves in the game for the Stars.

Wings 3 Sharks 0

With the team in a two games in two days situation, backup goaltender Jimmy Howard took to the crease for the Wings, delivering a 30 save shutout for the home team and extending its winning streak to four games.

Again the Wings played through a scoreless opening period, Nyquist potting a pair of middle period goals. The first came on a feed from Ericsson 4:14 into the frame and the other from Sproul with just under five minutes to play in the frame.

Andreas Athanasiou fired the other Wings’ goal on a feed from Thomas Vanek 6:05 into the third.

Maple Leafs 4 at BlackHawks 5

The Hawks pulled itself up to the .500 plateau again thanks to shootout goals by Jonathan Toews and Artemi Panarin while the Leafs fell in extra time for the third time already this season.

The Hawks rallied back from a 4-2 deficit with a goal by Artem Anisimov with 2:28 to go and the tying marker from Panik 68 seconds later.

Anisimov’s goal was his second of the night as he also opened the scoring 3:36 into the contest and Tyler Bozak sent teams to the break even with his goal 14 seconds from the first period buzzer.

Motte notched his second in as many games 11:08 into the middle period, but his marker was sandwiched by Toronto goals scored by William Nylander and James van Riemsdyk.

Nylander’s second of the game, 4:46 into the third had the Leafs up 4-2, setting the stage for the late rally by the Hawks.

After a scoreless overtime, teams went to shootout. Toews scored on his first attempt, but Auston Matthews evened it up with a second round goal for the Hawks. Panarin scored in the third round and Scott Darling, who stopped 30 in the first four periods, made the big stop against Mitch Marner to clinch the win for the BlackHawks.

Blues 6 at Flames 4

The Blues wrapped up a 1-1-1 Western Canada road trip with a 6-4 win in Calgary Saturday night led by David Perron who contributed a hat trick and an assist.

A back and forth contest saw Perron notching the lone goal of the opening frame before the Flames struck for two in 35 seconds early in the second, Kris Versteeg and Michael Ferland pulling the trigger respectively. The Blues though struck back with the next three, from Perron, Paul Stastny and Patrik Berglund to carry a 4-2 margin into the third.

Perron finished off his hat trick 6:50 into the final period, but the Flames charged back with goals from Mark Giordano and Versteeg to get within a goal with 4:54 to go Alex Steen sank the clinching goal into an empty net with 39 seconds to play, his second of the season.

Jake Allen had 23 saves to collect the shutout for the Blues while the Flames resisted the chance to send Bryan Elliott against his former teammates, instead going with backup keeper Cam Johnson who handled 34 of 39 Blues’ chances.

Wild 1 at Devils 2 (ot)

Taylor Hall fired his third of the season 29 second into overtime to complete the host Devils comeback and spoil the first night of a four-game road trip for the Wild at the Prudential Center in Newark.

The ending put a damper on a great night for Joel Eriksson Ek as the 19-year-old Swede appeared in his first NHL game and scored his first NHL goal one minute into the second period to put his team in front.

The lead held up until P.A. Parenteau responded for the Devils with 9:04 remaining in the third.

Cory Schneider stopped 28 of 29 to nail down the win in goal for the Devils and Devan Dubnyk turned in 30 saves for the Wild.

Wild 3 at Islanders 6

A night later at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Wild got a pair from Zach Parise, but couldn’t get close to the Islanders who doubled them 6-3.

Parise started things off 75 seconds into the game but John Tavares, Calvin de Haan and Johnny Boychuk all tallied for the Isles before the eight minute mark before Parise notched his second with 7:23 to go in the period making it a 3-2 Islanders’ lead after 20 minutes.

A scoreless second period was followed up by a wild final frame as Alan Quine and Thomas Hickey connected a little over two minutes part to widen the Isles’ gap to 5-2 in the first half of the period.

Nino Niederreiter snared one with 2:48 to go to get the Wild within a pair but an empty net marker by Tavares ended throughts of a late game rally.

Monday — Flames at Hawks

The lone game on Monday involving Midwest based teams will see the Hawks looking to get over the .500 plateau with a home game against the Calgary Flames at the United Center.

The Wild will continue its road trip, at Boston on Tuesday against the Bruins while the Wings host the Carolina Hurricanes, the Flames move on to St. Louis to face the Blues and the Blue Jackets begin a three-game west coast trip against the Los Angeles Kings.