There were plenty of surprises among the 10 NHL games played on Thursday, but none more so than the expansion Seattle Kraken picking up the franchise’s first overtime victory at the expense of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins (+1400) have the seventh-best odds to win the Stanley Cup while Seattle (+50000) ranks 28th in the championship odds.
Seven of the 10 games had a combined five or six goals scored, making those who bet online monitoring the action right down to the bitter end.
It could have been a costly evening for a couple teams. Adam Fox of the New York Rangers, who leads all NHL defensemen with 40 assists and 47 points, and Columbus Blue Jackets forward Alexandre Texier left with injuries.
Thursday Breakdown
The Ottawa Senators, playing without Drake Batherson due to an ankle injury, nearly pulled off one of the surprises in Thursday’s NHL action.
Alex Formenton scored for the second game in a row to put Ottawa up by a goal on the favored Carolina Hurricanes. However, Nino Niederreiter scored his third goal in the last four games. Niederreiter’s 13th goal came with 3:22 left in the third period. Andrei Svechnikov had the only goal in the shootout to give Carolina the 3-2 win. It was the fifth time in the last six meetings between the teams to fall under the total.
Ottawa outshot Carolina 39-29 in the game and had 17 more shots blocked.
It was one of three games that headed into overtime.
The expansion Seattle Kraken, losers of four straight road games, pulled off a bit of a stunner with a 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Jared McCann’s 17th goal with 3:56 left in the third period tied things up after Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin’s power-play goal earlier in the period put the Penguins in front. Adam Larsson scored 1:17 into overtime as the Kraken recorded the first overtime victory in franchise history. Pittsburgh came into the game 21-3 when scoring first. Seattle’s one-goal win had a payout of +450, as did the game going to overtime according to the Las Vegas odds.
Pittsburgh, which could have moved into first place in the Metropolitan Division with a win, fell to 13-5-3 at home.
In another surprise, the Edmonton Oilers won their third game in a row against the visiting Nashville Predators, who are tied for the most road wins in the Western Conference.
Nashville was 21-4-1 when scoring first coming into the game but Edmonton twice overcame one-goal deficits. Evan Bouchard forced overtime with 5:12 left in regulation with his third goal in the last three games while Connor McDavid won the game in overtime.
Filip Forsberg’s 200th career goal gave Nashville the early lead.
Trevor Zegras scored twice while Troy Terry had a goal and an assist as the visiting Anaheim Ducks scored three times in the first period and held on for a 5-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens despite being outshot 40-24. The Ducks are 11-8-5 when being outshot. Anaheim hitting the five-goal mark paid +375 according to the NHL betting lines.
It was the fifth time in the last six games that a Montreal game featured at least seven goals scored, with the Canadiens winning only one of those contests. It was Montreal’s first home game since Dec. 16.
On a night when teams out of playoff position made some of the league’s top teams work for the two points, the visiting New Jersey Devils scored first and tied the game at 10:55 on a goal by Jack Hughes before Anthony Cirelli gave the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning the 3-2 win.
New Jersey had won the previous two matchups with Tampa Bay.
Quinton Byfield’s first NHL goal helped the visiting Los Angeles Kings to a two-goal lead over the New York Islanders.
The first of MANY for Quinton Byfield (@byfield55). 🔥 pic.twitter.com/eLuqGUP8mX
— NHL (@NHL) January 28, 2022
Casey Czikas scored for the Islanders 16 seconds after the Kings re-established a two-goal cushion in the final minute of the game. The 3-2 win by Los Angeles snapped a four-game winning streak by the Islanders in games decided by one goal. New York had won its last eight games when listed by the Las Vegas odds as the favorite at home.
The biggest news in the Columbus Blue Jackets‘ 5-3 win over the visiting New York Rangers is that reigning Norris Trophy winner Fox left the game in the third period. The New York defenseman had an assist on the first goal of the game to give him 11 points in the last seven games. He is considered day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Boone Jenner scored twice as Columbus overcame an early two-goal deficit to snap a three-game losing streak. The Blue Jackets had been outscored 23-7 in the previous five games.
Perhaps the highest profile game of the night came when the Florida Panthers defeated the visiting Vegas Golden Knights 4-1. It was a one-goal game until Florida scored twice in the final 54 seconds. Sam Bennett scored twice as he recorded the first 20-goal season in his eighth NHL campaign.
Ryan O’Reilly’s goal with 1:01 left to play in the St. Louis Blues’ 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames resulted in the game hitting the total of six. Brandon Saad scored twice as St. Louis rebounded by a six-goal loss to Calgary three days earlier.
J.T. Miller scored three times as the Vancouver Canucks defeated the host Winnipeg Jets. It was Vancouver’s third straight road win, all as an underdog.
The game went over the 5½-goal total when Elias Pettersson scored with six minutes left. It was the fifth time in the last seven games that a game involving the Canucks had either six or seven combined goals.
The four-goal Vancouver win paid +2800. The total in the game opened at 5½ and never changed
