Phil Kessel scored a natural hat trick



Phil Kessel scored a natural hat trick

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24 Dec 2018 at 22:01
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Phil Kessel scored a natural hat trick and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Thursday night.Vegas scored the first goal Bobby Ryan Jersey , and Kessel had the next three — with the final two coming on second-period breakaways. It was Kessel’s sixth career hat trick and first in four seasons with Pittsburgh. His last hat trick came Feb. 1, 2014, with Toronto.Jake Guentzel scored his third goal and Evgeni Malkin had three assists.Casey DeSmith stopped 35 shots in his first regular-season start for Pittsburgh. Starter Matt Murray is day-to-day with a concussion sustained Monday during practice.Reilly Smith scored his second of the season for Vegas and 100th career goal. Tomas Nosek also scored for Vegas, which lost its third straight and has opened the season with four losses in five games.MAPLE LEAFS 5, RED WINGS 3DETROIT (AP) — Auston Matthews scored twice for an NHL-leading nine goals — tying a league record after five games — and Toronto beat Detroit for its third straight victory.Matthews joined Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Marleau, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy as the players in league history to score nine times in the first five games.Morgan Rielly had a goal and an assist, giving him 11 points. Mitch Marner and Ron Hainsey also scored, and Frederik Andersen made 26 saves. Nick Jensen scored twice for Detroit and Dylan Larkin added a goal. Jimmy Howard had 30 stops.AVALANCHE 6, SABRES 1BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon scored twice to extend his season-opening goals streak to four games, and Colorado beat Buffalo.Mackinnon matched the Colorado franchise record for a goals streak to open a season, set by John Mitchell three years ago.Semyon Varlamov stopped 30 shots to improve to 3-0. Tyson Jost, Colin Wilson, Carl Soderberg and Alexander Kerfoot also scored, helping Colorado improve to 3-1 for the third straight season. Mikko Rantanen set up three goals and has six assists for the season.Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, the first overall draft pick this summer, got his first career point with an assist on Nathan Beaulieu’s goal.RANGERS 3, SHARKS 2, OTNEW YORK (AP) — Brady Skjei buried a wrist shot 37 seconds into overtime to lift New York past San Jose for coach David Quinn’s first career victory.Quinn was hired away from Boston University in May. New York had dropped his first three games in his first season as an NHL head coach.New York’s Brendan Smith tied it at 2 with 2:39 remaining in the third with a one-timer from the slot. Pavel Buchnevich set it up with a backhand pass from behind the net. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 41 shots and Brett Howden also scored for the Rangers. Aaron Dell made 24 saves, and Marcus Sorensen and Joonas Donskoi scored in San Jose’s third stop of a four-game trip.KINGS 3, CANADIENS 0MONTREAL (AP) — Jack Campbell made 40 saves for his first career shutout and Los Angeles spoiled Montreal’s home opener.Jeff Carter had a goal and assist, and Adrian Kempe and Michael Armadio also scored.Campbell made his eighth career NHL start, getting into action with starter Jonathan Quick day-to-day after sustaining a lower-body injury in practice Sunday. Carey Price stopped 26 shots for the Canadiens.BRUINS 3, OILERS 1BOSTON (AP) — Brad Marchand and Joakim Nordstrom scored in a 36-second span in the first period and Jaroslav Halak stopped 25 shots to help Boston beat Edmonton.David Pastrnak had his fourth goal of the season www.officialsenators.com/authentic-adidas-chris-wideman-jersey , and Patrice Bergeron added an empty-netter in the final minute. Connor McDavid scored his first goal of the season for Edmonton, and Cam Talbot had 28 saves. The Oilers were playing only their second game of the season. They lost to New Jersey on Saturday in Sweden.PREDATORS 3, JETS 0NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pekka Rinne made 29 saves for his 52nd career shutout, leading Nashville past Winnipeg.Ryan Hartman had a goal and an assist and Roman Josi and Ryan Johansen also scored. Connor Hellebuyck made 27 saves for the Jets.The Central Division’s top two teams from a season ago met for the first time since the Jets ousted the Predators in a seven-game series in the second round of the playoffs.WILD 4, BLACKHAWKS 3, OTST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Ryan Suter tied it with 23 seconds left in the third period and Jason Zucker scored in overtime, rallying Minnesota past Chicago.Zucker had two goals and an assist, including a breakaway backhander 3:25 into overtime. Zach Parise sent a long pass across the red line to a streaking Zucker, whose shot went between Cam Ward’s pads to give the Wild their first win of the season.Eric Staal also scored, and Devan Dubnyk made 27 saves for the Wild. Alex DeBrincat had two goals and an assist for the Blackhawks, and Dominik Kahun scored his first NHL goal.BLUES 5, FLAMES 3ST. LOUIS (AP) — David Perron scored his fourth career hat trick, Alexander Steen had a goal and an assist, and St. Louis beat Calgary for its first victory of the season.Joel Edmundson also scored, Brayden Schenn had three assists, and Jake Allen made 31 saves.James Neal, Derek Ryan and Mikael Backlund scored for Calgary. Mike Smith was pulled following the second period after allowing five goals on 24 shots.BLUE JACKETS 5, PANTHERS 4SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Cam Atkinson scored with 2:46 left to lift Columbus past Florida.With traffic in front of the net, Atkinson swept the puck past goalie James Reimer, who was flat on his back during the play. The Panthers challenged for goalie interference, but the goal stood.Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists, Boone Jenner Craig Anderson Jersey , Anthony Duclair and Zach Werenski also scored, and Joonas Korpisalo stopped 37 shots. Evgenii Dadonov had a goal and two assists, and Aleksander Barkov, Nick Bjugstad and Troy Brouwer also scored for Florida. Reimer made 27 saves.DEVILS 6, CAPITALS 0NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Kyle Palmieri scored twice, Keith Kinkaid made 21 saves and New Jersey celebrated its home opener with the blowout victory over Stanley Cup champion Washington.Marcus Johansson, Blake Coleman, Jean-Sebastien Dea and Brian Boyle also scored. Kinkaid had his fifth career shutout.CANUCKS 4, LIGHTNING 1TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Elias Petterson and Brock Boeser scored 1:10 apart in the third period and Jake Virtanen and Markus Granlund added empty-net goals in Vancouver’s victory over Tampa Bay.Petterson scored his fourth goal in four games in his rookie season. Anders Nilsson made 33 saves in his season debut. Brayden Point scored the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves. Shandor Alphonso never envisioned his hockey career taking him to officiating. He didn’t have to look far to see it was possible.As a young, black player, all Alphonso had to do was watch ”Hockey Night in Canada” or the Stanley Cup Final and he saw fellow minority Jay Sharrers working as a linesman.”To be able to see someone who kind of looked like me working at the biggest stage of his job, it was unreal,” Alphonso said.The 34-year-old Alphonso is the NHL’s only African-American official, and Calgary Flames assistant Paul Jerrard is the league’s only black coach. With the sport’s expansion to some nontraditional markets across the United States, there are almost two dozen black players in the NHL, but Sharrers, Alphonso and Jerrard serve as inspiration for more to follow into positions of authority.”I think it’s an evolutionary process,” said Sharrers, who recently retired. ”It’s definitely moved slowly, but I think when you just look at the amount of black players that are now in the league and the fact that that has increased, it would stand to reason that hopefully the opportunity for officials would present itself.”Sixty years after Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins broke the color barrier as the NHL’s first black player, the league is still taking steps to increase its diversity. Alphonso is an ambassador for the ”Hockey is for Everyone” campaign this month Authentic Erik Karlsson Jersey Kids , which is Black History Month.Sharrers acknowledged the expense of playing hockey has been a hurdle for minority children for years, but said he is optimistic that more will not only lace up their skates but move into other roles.”It just stands to reason that that would be a natural progression, that there would more officials of color,” Sharrers said. ”The league has been very proactive since they partnered with Willie and created the diversity taskforce almost 20 years ago to expose and to present to people of color that hockey is a great game and it’s a viable opportunity.”Opportunities have existed for minorities to get into coaching and officiating, though the majority have ended up as goaltending coaches like former NHL goalie Fred Brathwaite. Jerrard played five games in the NHL and then went into coaching, where he’s a visible role model – even if that’s not a role he was looking for.”I’m just another coach who’s trying to do a good job in the league and stay in the league,” said Jerrard, 52, who has been an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Flames along with several American Hockey League teams. ”I guess I am now in a little bit of a position of a role model, but my drive to be a role model isn’t due to the color of my skin. It’s just the way I wanted carry myself as a human being, the way I want to be looked at: doing the right thing and working hard.”Jerrard hopes kids seeing minorities on the ice playing or officiating or behind the bench coaching shows that ”if they’re skilled, driven and passionate, there’s an opportunity for them.”That’s what happened for Alphonso, who knew he wasn’t going to make it to the NHL as a player and wanted to stay in the game. He thought to himself, ”If Jay Sharrers can do it, I could do it” and followed him up the ranks.Now Alphonso is the one kids can look up to, and Sharrers – who became the NHL’s first black referee in 2001 – believes his younger counterpart can have an even bigger impact.”Being that his skin is a lot darker than mine and I’m very light-skinned, it wouldn’t register necessarily with someone unless they knew my background to know that I was a person of color,” Sharrers said. ”I think for him having both parents being black and being much more of a visible minority, if you will, I think that’s definitely a role that he will now assume.”Alphonso welcomes that position and would love to one day meet a fellow official he inspired to go that route.”It’s huge for younger kids to see there are way more things to hockey than just being a hockey player,” Alphonso said. ”That’s hopefully what we can inspire these kids to do and get them more involved with the game down the road.”—