Bruins 3, Sabres 3
Shift of the game: Skating hard all game, rookie
Tyler Ennis, the Sabres' first-round pick in the 2008 Entry Draft, pressured Boston's
Milan Lucic into a second-period mistake behind the Bruins net. Lucic fanned on a hard-around and Ennis raced to the puck, making a short pass on Rask's right side to
Jason Pominville, who fired it past Rask on the left side for the go-ahead goal that gave Buffalo a 3-2 lead at 16:41. It was an important goal because the Sabres had surrendered a 2-0 first-period lead.
Capitals 6, Canadiens 5
Capitals' rookie defenseman
John Carlson used the phenomenal wrist shot he put on display in overtime of the gold-medal game at this year's World Juniors to beat
Jaroslav Halak to the glove side with 1:21 left in regulation to force overtime. Carlson fielded a nice drop pass from
Nicklas Backstrom and from the top of the left circle ripped a wrist shot into the top corner to tie the game at 5-5. Carlson scored the OT winner for Team USA at the World Juniors on a similar wrist shot from about 10 feet closer on Jan. 5.
Kings 3, Canucks 2 (OT)
Canucks defenseman
Christian Ehrhoff had an outstanding 15-second stint early in the second period while killing off a
Pavol Demitra holding penalty. Left alone in front against two Kings, Ehrhoff went to a knee to block a cross-crease pass that surely would've resulted in a slam-dunk goal. Later,
Roberto Luongo made a pad save and left a rebound nearby. But Ehrhoff flattened
Ryan Smyth and slid down to block the shot of
Michal Handzus. The Canucks killed the rest of the penalty and maintained their 2-0 lead.