Ice Breaker: McDavid makes it 12 for 12, Detroit wins anyway
Lucas Raymond wins a shootout in Edmonton, Doughty runs the Garden for the Kings, and Calgary beats Bobrovsky for a fourth straight win.
Three games on a Monday, and Connor McDavid still found a way to make it about him. He set up the opening goal in Edmonton, and that's a point in all 12 Oilers games this season. Detroit still won it in a shootout.
The games
Red Wings 4, Oilers 3 (SO)
Vasily Podkolzin opened it at 6:10 of the first off a McDavid–Draisaitl feed. Then the third period turned into a tennis match.
Isaac Howard put Edmonton up on the power play, Emmitt Finnie answered 30 seconds later, and Colton Dach made it 3-2 with 3:28 left. Dylan Larkin tied it at 18:43, and Lucas Raymond scored the only goal of the shootout. Michal Postava made 25 saves for the win.
Lind's read: Moritz Seider played 30:07 and Evan Bouchard played 31:41. Both coaches leaned on one defenseman like the other five were rentals, and two goals in the last 3:28 suggest the legs noticed.
Los Angeles scored three times in the first 17:32, and James Reimer's night ended at intermission with five saves on eight shots.
Taylor Ward and Brandt Clarke scored inside the first five minutes. Drew Doughty had a goal and two assists. Artemi Panarin, back at the Garden in a Kings sweater, scored on the power play early in the second. Adam Fox and Tye Kartye scored for New York, which has lost three straight.
Sully's chirp: Panarin came back to Madison Square Garden and scored on the Rangers' penalty kill. Nice of them to let him keep his old key.
Flames 5, Maple Leafs 2
Matvei Gridin scored twice, and Mikael Backlund scored in between, so Calgary led 3-0 by 25 seconds into the second. Devin Cooley made 26 saves and picked up an assist on Gridin's power-play goal. Easton Cowan and William Nylander got Toronto within one.
Joel Farabee and Martin Pospisil hit the empty net. Calgary has won four straight.
Lind's read: Toronto's skaters took 10 penalty minutes, four apiece from Auston Matthews and Cowan, against a Calgary power play converting 30 percent this season per NHL data. Gridin's goal 25 seconds into the second was the bill.
Three stars of the night
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Drew Doughty, Kings: a goal, two assists and a plus-3 in 21:37. The 36-year-old ran the game like it was 2014.
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Matvei Gridin, Flames: two goals and an assist on five shots in 16:11.
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Devin Cooley, Flames: 26 saves on 28 shots, a .929 night, and a helper on the power-play goal that made it 3-0.
Lind's number of the night
12. That's how many games McDavid has played this season, and he has a point in every one of them: 8 goals and 26 assists, 34 points, by our count. Leon Draisaitl rides a seven-game streak of his own beside him.
The catch is in the standings. Edmonton has 18 points, but it's killing only 70.6 percent of its penalties per NHL data, and that's a lot of nights McDavid has to win twice.
Sully's take of the morning
Look, Sergei Bobrovsky in a Leafs sweater was supposed to be the fix. Two Cups in Sunrise, the playoff guy, the answer to 20 years of goalie questions. Nine starts in, he's at .897, and last night Calgary put three past him before the Leafs remembered to show up.
Toronto finally got the goalie with the rings, and it turns out the rings don't stop pucks by themselves. Bring him back to Florida. The humidity was good for his glove hand. Grade: C-minus. I said what I said.
Tonight
Eleven games. The Panthers are at Winnipeg at 8 p.m. ET on Scripps, and the Jets are 0-3-2 in their last five by our count, so this is the night to take the points.
Boston at Carolina at 8 on ESPN is the heavyweight card: two 9-2 starts and only one of them leaves with a straight face. The Kings play again at Chicago after last night in New York, and the late ESPN game has Buffalo at San Jose at 10:30.
