Evgeni Nabokov

Here are the morning papers for Friday the 5th of December: The Bruins are losing defensemen, seemingly by the day, but that isn't slowing the team down, as the Bruins defeated the Lightning 3-1 in Tampa last night. In other injury news, Bruins winger Marco Sturm's neck is still bothering him. Buffalo outplayed Florida on Thursday night but that didn't make a difference, as the Panthers still prevailed 2-1. The Sabres switched their AHL affiliation at the end of last season and it appears the Rochester fans in the AHL are still not happy about it. The Flames are about to embark on a challenging four-game road trip. Calgary winger David Moss has been playing very well as of late. Even though Paul Maurice's Hurricanes were defeated 5-2 in his return behind the bench, he stayed positive after the game. Some fans were unhappy with the firing of Peter Laviolette and they voiced that last night. Here is some injury news from the Blackhawks. Ian Lapperiere stuck up for teammate Brian Willsie last night and went after Jordin Tootoo, unfortunately the Predators scored on the ensuing powerplay. As a result of the hit, Willsie incurred a knee injury. Paul Stastny has his chance to tie the game late in the third period, but he just missed, writes Terry Frei. The Blue Jackets played very well in San Jose on Thursday but took too many penalties and came away with a 3-2 loss. Meanwhile, Raffi Torres (knee) is going under the knife again and will be out 2-4 weeks. With four days off, the Stars are going to be doing a lot of soul-searching over the next few days. It may have been a coach's nightmare, but the Red Wings/Canucks game ended how the Wings wanted it to--with a victory, writes Ted Kulfan. It appears Mathieu Garon will gets another start tonight for the Oilers when they visit his former team in Los Angeles. Speaking of returning to L.A., Lubomir Visnovsky will do that for the first time tonight, since his trade to Edmonton over the summer. Craig Anderson continued his terrific play this season, with a 45 save performance at home against Buffalo on Thursday. With so many injuries to their forwards corps, the Cats need more scoring from their depth lines. Here is some information on how the Kings may line up for tonight's game against Edmonton. Wild GM Doug Risebrough says don't worry, Brent Burns will eventually move back to playing defense. It was quite a powerful ceremony before yesterday's Habs game in Montreal, writes Dave Stubbs. The Habs were dominant offensively last night, as they cruised to a 6-2 victory over NYR. Meanwhile, Habs owner George Gillete says the Habs are not for sale. David Legwand set the games played record for the Predators yesterday and scored a goal too, to help the Predators defeat Colorada. Nashville defenseman Ville Koistinen didn't have one of his stronger games last night, said Predators coach Barry Trotz. Off the ice, former Predators owner Williams "Boots" Del Biaggio has been charged in a massive fraud scheme. Patrik Elias scored the 15th NHL overtime goal of his career, which obviously led to the Devils' 3-2 victory over the rival Flyers. Joey MacDonald was terrific last night versus Washington but it still wasn't enough, writes Greg Logan. "It was like an NHL team against . . . a non-NHL team," said Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist after last night's bad loss at Montreal. Lundqvist can take solace that the entire team was disgusted with their play last night. Chris Neil is coming back early from knee surgery and will be in the line-up tomorrow when the Senators face the Penguins. The Flyers let last night's game slip away against the Devils, writes Sam Carchidi. Luca Sbisa has made quite an impression as an 18 year old playing significant minutes on the Flyers' back end. Martin Hanzal gave his parents quite a going away present by scoring a hat trick in the Coyotes' 6-3 dominating win over Toronto. Petr Sykora has never scored a hat trick in the NHL but he did come close last night for the 38th time, writes Dave Molinari. When it came to defeating the Hurricances, Sidney Crosby's big night didn't hurt either. Evgeni Nabokov was the star on Thursday for the streaking Sharks, writes David Pollak. Apparently Claude Lemieux tallied three points in his first three games in the AHL. Paul Kariya has been out of the Blues line-up for a month and he doesn't appear to be any closer to a return. Tampa Bay didn't lack effort yesterday against Boston but they lost anways, writes Tony Fabrizio. With their veterans struggling, the Bolts are looking to some youngsters to fill some roster spots. Tomas Kaberle was benched for the entire first period on Thursday by Ron Wilson, and when he played in the second and third periods he didn't look good. Wilson is clearly continuing to make his mark in Toronto, writes Rob Longley. After watching Vancouver fall to Detroit on Thursday, Jason Botchford says it is clear the Canucks miss Roberto Luongo. The good news is that Luongo seems to be making good progress on his road back to recovery. Donald Brashear scored his first goal of the season against the Islanders yesterday and it just happened to be the game-winning goal. For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock.

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