Facts and Figures: Crawford excels again in hometown for Blackhawks
Goalie lowers goals-against average to 1.12 at Montreal
NHL.com @NHLdotcom
Corey Crawford saves some of his best performances for his hometown.
The Montreal native made 32 saves Wednesday to help the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Canadiens 4-1 at Bell Centre for their sixth road win in seven games.
Crawford is 6-0-2 in his eight games at Montreal, where he has a 1.12 goals-against average, .971 save percentage and two shutouts. He's the fourth goalie in NHL history with a personal point streak of at least eight games in Montreal to begin his career. The others: Bill Durnan of the Canadiens (23-0, three ties, from Oct. 30, 1943-Oct. 28, 1944), Ken Dryden of the Canadiens (16-0, three ties, from March 18, 1971-Jan. 19, 1972) and Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals (8-0-1 from March 15, 2011-Feb. 4, 2017).
Chicago extended its road point streak against Montreal to eight games (6-0-2) and its winning streak at Bell Centre to six. Each represents Chicago's longest active road streak against one opponent.
Flyers end Blues' home winning streak
The Philadelphia Flyers ended the St. Louis Blues' home winning streak at nine games when Jakub Voracek scored at 3:33 of overtime for a 4-3 win at Enterprise Center.
The Flyers led 3-1 after Travis Konecny scored a power-play goal 26 seconds into the third period. But the Blues, who are tied with the Capitals and Calgary Flames for the NHL lead with 15 comeback wins, tied the game 3-3 on goals 3:04 apart by Ryan O'Reilly and Alexander Steen.
Voracek scored the 10th regular-season overtime goal of his NHL career and eighth with the Flyers. Claude Giroux (11) is the only player in Flyers history with more.
The Flyers ended an opponent's home winning streak of at least nine games for the fifth time in their history and second in the past 36 years. The others: Jan. 27, 2016 (Capitals; 12 games), Jan. 14, 1984 (Quebec Nordiques; 10 games), Jan. 2, 1983 (Blackhawks; 11 games) and March 27, 1976 (Boston Bruins; 16 games).
Two of top three teams in East face off when Penguins visit Bruins
Two of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference will play when the Atlantic Division-leading Bruins (27-9-12) host the Pittsburgh Penguins (29-12-5) at TD Garden on Thursday (ESPN+, NESN, ATTSN-PT, NHL.TV). They are second and third in the East behind the Capitals (31-11-5).
Bruins forward David Pastrnak leads the NHL with 36 goals and is fifth with 66 points. If Pastrnak gets at least four points in his next two games, he'll become the first Bruins player to reach 70 points in his first 50 games of a season since Cam Neely (74 points; 50 goals, 24 assists in 49 games) and Adam Oates (73 points; 22 goals, 51 assists in 50 games) in 1993-94. Pastrnak has 19 multipoint performances in 48 games this season.
The Penguins have won four in a row and are 15-3-1 since Dec. 1, moving them from a battle for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the East to second in the Metropolitan Division and third in the conference.
Merzlikins seeks third straight shutout for Blue Jackets
Rookie goalie Elvis Merzlikins will try for his third straight shutout when the Columbus Blue Jackets play the Carolina Hurricanes at Nationwide Arena (7 p.m. ET; FS-O, FS-CR, NHL.TV). Merzlikins made 27 saves against the Vegas Golden Knights on Jan. 11 and 34 against the Bruins on Jan. 14. He can join Steve Mason (Dec. 27-31, 2008) and Sergei Bobrovsky (March 2-7, 2017) as the third Blue Jackets goalie with three consecutive shutouts.
Columbus (23-16-8) is 6-2-0 in its past eight games and two points behind the Hurricanes (27-17-2) and Flyers (25-16-6), who hold the two wild cards in the East.