Top lines power Avalanche, Bruins

The Colorado Avalanche and Boston Bruins got big nights from their big lines on Sunday.

Colorado's top line of center Nathan MacKinnon and forwards Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog led the way in a 4-1 victory at the Edmonton Oilers than ended the Avalanche's five-game losing streak. In Boston, the line of Patrice Bergeron between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak powered the Bruins to a 4-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Rantanen scored Colorado's first goal and had an assist on defenseman Tyson Barrie's third-period goal; he leads the NHL in scoring with 26 points (six goals, 20 assists). MacKinnon had two assists and has 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists), third in the NHL. Landeskog had one assist and has 19 points (11 goals, eight assists).

Together, they have combined for 69 points, one more than Boston's top line. Bergeron is second in the NHL with 25 points (nine goals, 16 assists), Pastrnak is fourth with 23 (16 goals, seven assists) and Marchand has 20 points (six goals, 14 assists)
Since 1996-97, only one other season has had at least one threesome from multiple teams combine for at least 68 points through 17 team games. In 2005-06, Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza had 94 points (38 goals, 56 assists) for the Ottawa Senators; Peter Forsberg, Simon Gagne and Joni Pitkanen had 80 (30 goals, 50 assists) for the Philadelphia Flyers, and Marc Savard, Marian Hossa and Ilya Kovalchuk had 68 (26 goals, 42 assists) for the Atlanta Thrashers.
The Avalanche had three players (Joe Sakic, Valeri Kamensky and Forsberg) combine for 69 points (24 goals, 45 assists) through their first 17 games in 1995-96.
Pastrnak's third-period goal was his NHL-leading 16th; he scored 33 in 82 games last season. The 22-year-old is the sixth player in the Bruins' 94-season history to score at least 16 goals through Boston's first 17 games.

Forward Nikita Kucherov scored 16 goals in the Tampa Bay Lightning's first 17 games in 2017-18 en route to a 39-goal, 100-point season. The last set of back-to-back seasons with a player scoring at that pace in each came in 1992-93 (Dave Andreychuk of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Luc Robitaille of the Los Angeles Kings) and 1993-94 (Bob Kudelski of the Senators and Mike Modano of the Dallas Stars).

Wild complete best road trip

Mikael Granlund scored his 10th goal of the season to break a 2-2 tie in the third period and help the Minnesota Wild defeat the St. Louis Blues 3-2 to complete the longest road trip in their history with a 5-2-0 record. It's the first time since entering the NHL in 2000 that the Wild have won at least five games on the same trip.

Granlund is the fifth player in Wild history to score at least 10 goals in the first 17 games of a season, and the second in as many seasons. Each of the others finished with at least 30 goals: Marian Gaborik (11 goals in 2002-03, finished with 30), Brian Rolston (11 goals in 2006-07, finished with 31), Jason Pominville (10 goals in 2013-14, finished with 30) and Jason Zucker (10 goals in 2017-18, finished with 33).
The Wild (11-4-2) have trailed in eight of their 11 victories this season, including Sunday. Minnesota leads the NHL in comeback wins this season; the Vancouver Canucks are second with seven. Of the 259 games played in the NHL this season, 113 them (43.6 percent) have seen the winning team trail at some point.

Three Panthers continue streaks

Three Florida Panthers kept point streaks alive during a five-goal second period in a 5-1 win against the Senators at BB&T Center.
Forward Mike Hoffman had two assists to extend his streak to 12 games, during which he has 14 points (seven goals, seven assists). He is one game shy of the Panthers record set by Pavel Bure (12 goals, nine assists) from March 10-April 5, 2000. Hoffman also equaled Carolina Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho for the longest point streak in the NHL this season.

Forward Evgenii Dadonov had an assist, giving him points in 11 straight games (13 points; six goals, seven assists). He leads the Panthers with 16 points (seven goals, nine assists).
Keith Yandle also had an assist to extend his point streak to seven games, the longest by a defenseman in Panthers history. It's also the longest active point streak among NHL defensemen and two shy of matching Brent Burns of the San Jose Sharks for the longest by a defenseman this season.

The Panthers scored five goals in a period for the eighth time since entering the NHL in 1993. The team record is six, set on April 5, 2000, when the Panthers defeated the Boston Bruins 6-2.

Wheeler, O'Reilly also streaking

Winnipeg Jets forward Blake Wheeler and Blues center Ryan O'Reilly extended their respective point streaks to 10 games, bringing the total of double-digit streaks this season to 10. There were 17 point streaks of at least 10 games last season, with four coming before the end of November.

Wheeler had two assists in the Jets' 5-2 win against the New Jersey Devils at Bell MTS Place for his fourth straight multipoint game. His first assist came 29 seconds after his streak of having a point on 10 consecutive team goals ended. The two assists gave Wheeler 501 points (168 goals, 333 assists) with the Jets; he is the first player to reach 500 points for Winnipeg since the team relocated from Atlanta in 2011-12, and one of four to do so for an NHL team based in Winnipeg.
O'Reilly, acquired in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres on July 1, became the fifth player to have a point streak of at least 10 games in his first season with the Blues. He leads St. Louis with 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 15 games.