The Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild will make history at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday (6 p.m. ET; FS-N, FS-O, NHL.TV). They will be first two teams in any of the four major North American professional sports to play a game when each has a win streak of at least 12 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The Blue Jackets defeated the Winnipeg Jets 5-3 on Thursday to extend their winning streak to 14 games, matching the third-longest single-season win streak ever in the NHL. A victory would tie them with the New York Islanders (Jan. 21 to Feb. 20, 1982) and Pittsburgh Penguins (March 2-30, 2013) for the second-longest win streak at 15 games. The NHL record is 17 in a row by the Penguins from March 9 to April 10, 1993.
The Wild got third-period goals from Erik Haula and Mikael Granlund in a 6-4 win against the New York Islanders on Thursday to push their win streak to 12.
Here's a look at how each team got to this point:
BLUE JACKETS
When it started: 5-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 29
Largest margin of victory: 7- 1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 22
Smallest margin of victory: 3-2 shootout wins against the Arizona Coyotes on Dec. 3 and Los Angeles Kings on Dec. 20
It almost ended on: Dec 3 against the Coyotes. The Blue Jackets trailed 2-1 until Alexander Wennbergscored the tying goal with 2:16 remaining in the third period, and Columbus won in the shootout.
Leading scorer during streak: Sam Gagner leads with 16 points, and his seven goals are second to Brandon Saad's eight. Cam Atkinson also has seven goals.
Top goalie: Sergei Bobrovsky has started 12 of the 14 games during the win streak and allowed a total of 20 goals on 339 shots (.941 save percentage).
0 Commentaires