Blake Wheeler snapped a 15-game goalless drought and Mark Scheifele continued his hot streak as the Jets blew out the Avalanche, Blues defenceman Jay Bouwmeester played in his 1,100th career regular-season game, Islanders captain John Tavares hit the 30-goal plateau for the fourth time in his career, and the Flyers ended decade-long losing streak against the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
Here are four things we learned on a quiet Friday in the NHL.
Islanders may never allow another goal
After failing to register a shutout in the first 58 games of the season, New York Islanders netminders Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss are all of a sudden the hottest goalie tandem in the NHL.
Halak posted a 50-save shutout against the Rangers Thursday and Greiss followed that up by making 45 saves to blank the Hurricanes on Friday night.
While the back-to-back shutouts are a surprising result, the fact they’ve allowed 95 shots against in the past two games is not as they allow the most shots in the entire league.
Klingberg is almost producing at Karlsson’s pace
Any right-shot, offensive-minded Swedish defenceman is naturally going to be compared to Erik Karlsson. Most of the time it’s unwarranted but in John Klinberg’s case it might be deserved. The Dallas Stars blueliner recorded his 200th career point and hit that milestone in his 279th game, which is only seven games behind Karlsson’s pace. The Sens superstar has 495 points in 607 career games and two Norris Trophies to his name so Klingberg has a ways to go before he’s considered on Karlsson’s level. He’s off to a strong start, though.
Sabres AHL affiliate puts up a cool dozen
It wasn’t NHL action but Buffalo’s farm team, the Rochester Americans, beat the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 12-3, scoring three in the first, four in the second and five in the third. You don’t see a hockey team hit double digits too often.
Seth Griffith led all scorers with two goals and three assists, and according to ESPN Stats & Info it was the most goals by an AHL team since Dec. 8, 2002.
Aho vs. Aho
It was the moment hockey fans had waited years to see…OK maybe not, but for the first time in NHL history two players named Sebastian Aho played against one another as Aho’s Islanders beat Aho’s Hurricanes.
NHL fans have become familiar with Hurricane Aho, one of the most skilled young forwards in the league, but Isles Aho is far lesser-known. Isles Aho was a fifth-round pick (139th overall) in 2017 and has only played 17 career NHL games.
Besides their shared name and the fact both are in the NHL, the unrelated players don’t have too much in common. The Hurricanes’ Aho is a Finnish forward, while the Islanders’ Aho is a defenceman from Sweden. Neither were much of a factor in a 3-0 Islanders win.
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