The Toronto Maple Leafs lost by a touchdown, the Montreal Canadiens’ six-game winning streak was snapped at home, and the last-place Buffalo Sabres finally managed to string together two consecutive wins for the first time this season.
With 11 games on the schedule Tuesday, here are five things we learned from an eventful night of NHL action:
Leafs need to make a coaching change: It’s easy to overreact to a poor performance or a string of bad games, but at what point can the Toronto Maple Leafs continue this charade? After the team followed Saturday’s pitiful effort in Buffalo with an ugly 9-2 loss on home ice to the Nashville Predators, it has again become abundantly clear that the players are not responding to the message of head coach Randy Carlyle. They had woefully lackadaisical efforts in both those losses. New president Brendan Shanahan has preached patience since the start of his tenure and may want to see this through, but the Leafs are hardly benefiting by simply hoping to see further progress. Clearly the players are at fault here as well, but Tuesday’s effort — or lack thereof — was further evidence that it is time for a change. It’s worth seeing what a different coach could do with this group before potentially gutting the roster.
Fleury paying dividends for Penguins: There were many skeptics when the Pittsburgh Penguins handed Marc-Andre Fleury a four-year, $23 million contract earlier in the season — and rightfully so. Fleury’s play has been erratic and unreliable, but maybe the Penguins were onto something. Obviously the sample size is small (as the analytics crowd loves to say), but Fleury is making GM Jim Rutherford and the Penguins look pretty smart. The Penguins goaltender has greatly exceeded expectations since landing that deal, leading the league in shutouts while posting a career-high save percentage. Fleury looked like a legitimate Vezina candidate with a stellar 27-save performance Tuesday, as he notched his first career shutout against the Canadiens. He is 8-1-0 with a .944 save-percentage in his last nine starts dating back to Oct. 25. Stability may have been exactly what Fleury needed.
Nashville pulled off a heist in Forsberg deal: As time goes on, it has become increasingly difficult to understand what former Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee was thinking when he dealt 2012 first round pick Filip Forsberg to the Nashville Predators for Martin Erat and Michael Latta at the 2013 trade deadline. Capitals fans should be shaking their heads as Forsberg has developed into one of the premier young scorers in the game, tied for the Predators team lead with nine goals, while Erat no longer plays in Washington and Latta has one point in 14 games this season. He was a scratch Tuesday night while Erat coincidentally played against the Capitals. This looks like Washington’s version of Andrew Raycroft for Tuukka Rask.
The Sabres need to play the Sharks more often: Buffalo hasn’t done much winning this year. They have a total of five victories on the season – with only three of them coming in regulation time. Amazingly, two of those three regulation victories have come against the San Jose Sharks, a supposed Stanley Cup contender. Some things are just unexplainable.
Rocco Grimaldi is a trooper: The Florida Panthers forward was a busy man on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, he suited up for the AHL’s Oklahoma City Barons before he was made an emergency call-up for the Florida Panthers following an injury to forward Aleksander Barkov. Grimaldi managed to fly to Los Angeles and still make it in time to suit up for the Panthers’ game against the Kings. After that trek, Grimaldi, who was born in California, has to be considered a team player. That’s impressive.