NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Despite never leading until the end, the Colorado Avalanche got out of Nashville with a win over the Predators. Gabriel Landeskog scored two goals in regulation and then netted the winner in the shootout to lead the Avalanche to a 5-4 victory on Tuesday night. Cody McLeod and Nick Holden also scored for Colorado, which ended a three game losing streak. With the shootout tied 1-1, Landeskog beat goalie Pekka Rinne with a wrist shot from the right side. Roman Josi and Matt Cullen each had two goals for Nashville, which had a two-game winning streak snapped. Nashville has lost six consecutive home games. Josi scored the games first goal at 3:33 of the opening period. After Holden overskated the puck in the neutral zone, Craig Smith carried it into the Avalanche end on the right side and missed wide with a shot from the circle. The rebound came to Josi at the left point, and the Swiss Olympian beat goalie Semyon Varlamov with a slap shot. "I think we started pretty slow," Varlamov said. "The Predators had so many chances to score. We played better in the second and third periods." Josi struck again at 9:49 of the first. Inside the Colorado zone, rookie centre Calle Jarnkrok won a faceoff back to Josi. From the centre of the blue line, he beat Varlamov with a wrist shot, aided by a screen from Gabiel Bourque, who was stationed just in front of the net. Jarnkrok has posted an assist in his first three NHL games. He also scored Nashvilles lone goal in the shootout. Landeskog cut the Nashville lead in half with 54 seconds remaining in the first with a wrist shot from the low slot that beat Rinne on the stick side. "Paul (Stastny) and Nate (MacKinnon) made great plays in the corner to get the puck to me," Landeskog said. "I was alone in the slot and I managed to get my stick out and find an angle to get it far side. I think that was a big one, but at the same time we all regrouped in the second and came out hard." Until then, Nashville had controlled the first period. The Predators outshot Colorado 13-3 in the opening frame. Nashville finished with a 33-28 shot advantage. "It could have been easily three or four nothing for them after the first period," Colorado coach Patrick Roy said. "Sometimes its nice to win a game when you are not playing well. That was the case tonight." Colorado tied it at 8:41 when an unchecked Landeskog beat Rinne from the high slot for his second goal of the game. The Avalanche captain set a career high with 23 goals. Nashville regained the lead at 14:43 of the second when Cullen beat Varlamov from in tight with a wrist shot high to the short side. "It felt like one of those games where you deserve to win it by the way you played, but you need to give a lot of credit to their team," Cullen said. "They have a lot of dynamic players that can just go out and scored a goal right away. Its unfortunate the way that it ended up, but for a lot of the game, we felt good about things." After McLeod tied it at 12:25 of the third, Cullen and Holden traded goals 44 seconds apart late to force overtime. "On the fourth goal, we carried it through the neutral zone instead of making a real firm play, we just sort of threw it in the middle and they came back and transitioned and threw a puck at the net there that got by Pekka," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. "We didnt lock it down. We didnt make strong plays when we had those leads." NOTES: Nashville D Seth Jones missed the game with concussion-like symptoms. The rookie was the only Predators player to be in the teams first 72 games this season. ... Bourque has assists in three straight games. ... Nashville is 19-0-4 when leading after two periods this season... The Avalanche had no power plays for the second time this season. A. J. Cann Youth Jersey . The Canadians opened their European tour Saturday with a 27-19 loss to France in Pontarlier. The tour wraps up Nov. 13 with a game against England. Justin Blackmon Jaguars Jersey . PAUL, Minn. http://www.shopthejaguarsonline.com/Elite-Tj-Yeldon-Jaguars-Jersey/ .com) - Top seed Richard Gasquet advanced to the final of the Kremlin Cup with a semifinal win Saturday, but second-seeded Andreas Seppi came up short in defense of his title. Denard Robinson Jaguars Jersey . Marie Greyhounds centre Jared McCann is the big mover this month, jumping into the top ten of the International Scouting Services prospect rankings for December. John Cyprien Womens Jersey . Neither made it that far in 2013. Not even close. Federer lost his second match at the All England Club. Nadal exited in the first round, a year after bowing out in the second.ST. PAUL, Minn. Life just got a lot harder for the suddenly banged up Toronto Maple Leafs. Already struggling to produce a consistent product on the ice and facing a whole whack of games on the road this month, Toronto learned Friday that it will be without two of its top three centres and third-highest scoring winger, all for a good chunk of January. Joffrey Lupul will miss the next month with a lower body injury. Nazem Kadri, also out with a lower body injury, will be sidelined for 7-10 days. And Peter Holland will sit week to week with an upper body issue. All three stem from a Wednesday night win in Boston and will ultimately test the depth that defined the clubs offseason. Its been a strength of our team all year, Lupul said of the clubs depth last month. You never want to anticipate injuries or anything, but at some point in time theres going to be guys that go down and this year it certainly looks like we have the depth throughout our lineup of guys that can step up and play in those situations and get offence and play in critical situations. Though they fell in Minnesota, Fridays effort was actually a reasonable start. We cannot complain with the effort, said head coach, Randy Carlyle, after a 3-1 loss to the Wild. Were not happy with the result, but I think that the effort was there. If we continue along those lines and we play that brand of hockey well give ourselves a chance to win some games. The Leafs actually won a rare possession battle, spending large amounts of the night in the Minnesota end while holding their opponents to just 29 shots. It was just the 11th time all season that theyve held an opponent under 30 shots and second in as many games. Much of that, players said afterward, was due to improved exits from the defensive zone, a facet of the game the club has been pushing to improve in recent days (more on that below). They also didnt allow near as many quality opportunities from those areas of the ice deemed dangerous. Hopefully this is the style of play that we adopt and we feel that we can execute at that level and it all just starts in our own end in our puck recoveries and defensive zone coverage, Carlyle said. We werent as porous. They didnt hold us in the offensive zone. They had a few flurries, but they werent dominating us on the possession time in our zone. The highest scoring team in hockey, it was rare to see the Leafs held in check as they were by Darcy Kuemper and the Wild and it will be indeed curious to see how this group manages offensively in the coming weeks without Lupul and Kadri. Lupul led the club with 12 even-strength points in December, trailed closely behind by Kadri, who had six such goals and 11 points in 15 games. They are also the teams two best possession players by some margin and form a dangerous secondary threat beyond Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk. That will mean more pressure on that top line to produce, specifically at even-strength where theyve often failed to muster any consistent magic. It will also likely mean more ice-time for the likes of Kessel, van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak. Kessel and Bozak, in fact, pushed nearly 26 minutes on Friday, van Riemsdyk just a tad behind despite requiring repairs in the third period for the damage of a puck to the face. Toronto faced a similar challenge last season with injuries; a year ago last month they played 12 games without Bozak and the since departed Dave Bolland. The club went 5-5-2 in that stretch, surviving some without two of their top three centres. Centre ice will again be tested and likely exposed with Kadri and Holland on the shelf. Beyond Bozak, Toronto had Daniel Winnik, Trevor Smith and Greg McKegg line up in the other three spots down the middle against the Wild, a very limited trio offensively. What the Leafs have now that they didnt under similar circumstance last year is versatile depth across the roster. The likes of Winnik, Mike Santorelli, Leo Komarov, David Booth and later, Richard Panik, were added to help bolster what had been a three-line hockey team, one that was weak on options in case of injury. In this case, the Leafs will need those like Panik to produce with an increase in opportunity. Unexpectedly productive offensively in the early months the club will also require further contributions from Winnik, Santorelli and Komarov and something more from Booth, who has just one goal in 18 games. More generally theyll require more of the structured acts that Friday brought. And theyll have to do away from their Toronto confines, playing nine of the next 11 on the road. Five Points 1. Breakouts One point for improvement during a five-game trip that concludes Saturday for the Leafs in Winnipeg is how they break the puck out of the defensive zone. Thered been a tendency, as Cody Franson observed earlier in the week, for the five players on the ice to become too spread out. I think its more puck support, Carlyle said before Fridays game.dddddddddddd I think weve been guilty far too often of leaving people high and dry. I think everybodys got the same mantra in the league now that you have to have four or five guys around the puck. You make those short little passes, release passes away from pressure. We know everybodys forechecking with three guys and then the fourth guy is their defenceman usually pushing the walls. That hasnt changed. Thats been probably a staple in the NHL here for the last four or five years. I think thats one of the issues that weve had to deal with and were continually trying to improve in that area. They did so against the Wild. Key to outshooting Minnesota just the 10th time thats happened for the Leafs this season was improvement in those exits from the defensive zone. I thought we had a lot of clean breakouts and we seemed to skate the puck in a lot from our end to their end, Winnik said. You have cleaner breakouts and quick breakouts and youre obviously going to spend less time in your end. 2. Discipline & Officials Discussed in the visiting dressing room after defeat was the clubs lacking discipline. Winniks third period slash on Ryan Suter sprung the Wild to their third and final goal, a one-time power-play blast from Mikko Koivu. Ive got to keep my cool in that situation, especially the time of the game and how we were kind of coming on there, Winnik said. Its just a dumb play by me. Phil Kessel was later whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct, chirping the officials after a slash from Matt Cooke went unpunished. The Leafs were none too pleased though earlier in the evening with the officiating. Mike Santorelli appeared to score the games first goal on a power-play, but the marker was called back shortly thereafter. It was ruled that David Clarkson interfered with Kuemper in front. Carlyle contends that he was pushed by Wild defender Jared Spurgeon. They deemed that he interfered with the goaltender, Carlyle said. Obviously from our standpoint and watching the video he was pushed from behind by Jared Spurgeon. Obviously they saw it different. You dont win those ones. 3. Life in the New Year Its a well-known theory among coaches that the league tightens up after the New Year. Why? I just think thats the nature in an 80-game schedule, Carlyle said Thursday. I think theres only so many more points made available and that the intensity ramps up. Everybodys going to preach it. Were preaching it so every other team is going to be doing the same thing. 4. Video Session Like any team around the league, the Leafs commonly look to video to prescribe fixes to troubled spots of their game. Theyve had some particularly painstaking sessions of late, the team sliding with five losses in the previous seven games. The coaches arent trying to blame anybody or point players out or anything like that, Morgan Rielly said, theyre just trying to help the team and just trying to make the team better. You cant take it personally, youve just got to worry about getting better and try to help out your teammates. Rielly says what often looks like the right play on ice doesnt end up being the case in review on video. I think when you watch it on tape it looks a lot easier than it actually is playing, he said. There might be a play where on tape it looks kind of stupid, but during the game but you might think its the right play
youve just got to learn from your mistakes. 5. Video Session II Its definitely teaching, Korbinian Holzer said of the video work. You have to show the bad things to ensure that everybody gets the message. Its more like a teaching lesson; you sit in there, you listen. We got shown all the things that weve got to do differently, the stuff we didnt do right in the game and how we can make it better. There are games, he continued, where you think it was a bad game and then you watch the video and its like oh it wasnt that bad. And there are games where it didnt feel so bad and you watch the video and its disgusting. There are definitely some games where you watch it on the video and its tough to watch. I bet thats how the coaches feel too. In addition to group sessions, Torontos coaching staff also holds individual video meetings with players on the regular. Stats-Pack 25:48 Ice-time for Phil Kessel against the Wild, a season-high. 6-2-2 Leafs record when outshooting the opponent. 11- Number of times the Leafs have held an opponent under 30 shots this season. 46-42 Possession advantage for the Leafs on Friday. 8-4-1 Leafs record versus the Western Conference. Special Teams Capsule PP: 1-4 Season: 20.7% (9th) PK: 2-3 Season: 82.3% (12th) Quote of the Night Its just a dumb play by me. -Daniel Winnik, on the third period penalty that led to Minnesotas third goal. Up Next The Leafs conclude their five-game road trip in Winnipeg on Saturday. cheap nfl jerseys cheap jerseys cheap jerseys cheap jerseys cheap nfl jerseys wholesale jerseys ' ' '
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