NHL Scores & More: Red Wings Win 20th Straight At Home, Halak Shuts Out Sharks

The L.A. Kings went on a scoring rampage for their standards and scored three even-strength goals with an empty-netter and beat the Dallas Stars, 4-2, on the road. L.A.'s scoring was mostly led by the young players, two who scored their first goals of their NHL careers.

Dwight King, most prominently noticed tonight for his namesake, began the scoring for the Kings with the game's first marker in the opening period. King almost scored again on L.A.'s second goal, but the puck deflected by Andrei Loktionov just whizzed over King's stick, and Loktionov received credit for his second career goal.

Down 2-0, the Stars struggled for a bit getting the puck in deep, but a poor defensive play resulted in a goal for Loui Eriksson to cut L.A.'s lead in half. Michael Ryder tied the game up in the third on another soft goal, this time to be blamed on Jonathan Quick.

Still, even with the score evened up, the Stars couldn't establish any pressure, and the Kings took advantage of this as Jordan Nolan joined the scoring ranks with his first NHL goal, as well. King had an assist on the goal, giving him two points on the night. With three seconds left, well-seasoned Justin Williams banked one in the empty net and L.A. took the game, 4-2, thanks to the offensive contributions of players other than Anze Kopitar (who had a hand in L.A.'s first two goals).

With the win, the Kings extend their lead over the Phoenix Coyotes by three points and sit in seventh in the West, tied in points with the Chicago Blackhawks (65). The struggling Stars are still three points back of a playoff spot.

For Jaroslav Halak, this season with the St. Louis Blues has been a long, strange battle.

After seeing his job as the starter taken away following a series of shaky performances, the Slovakian netminder was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the new systems put into place by head coach Ken Hitchcock.

After slowly improving through the new year, Halak has reclaimed the starting job in no small part because of four shutout performances since mid-January.

After meeting the San Jose Sharks tonight at the Scottrade Center, that number is now five.

Though San Jose certainly put up a spirited effort vs. the Blues, that same energy also worked into the hands of the home team. The Sharks repeatedly found themselves in penalty trouble, including an early two-man deficit with both Dan Boyle and Brent Burns in the box, robbing San Jose of two of their best defensemen.

As the two man advantage wound down, Alex Pietrangelo corralled the puck along the San Jose blue line, found a lane through the penalty kill, and unleashed a shot past Antti Niemi to give the Blues all the scoring they would need.

That said, the Blues continued to look for opportunities, and their play opened another two-man advantage late in the second period when Ryan Clowe took an initial infraction for tripping Kris Russell, and Brad Winchester managed to clip Roman Polak with an elbow before San Jose could touch up on the delayed call.

With Pietrangelo firing another shot from the top of the zone, Niemi made a blocker save, but David Perron knocked the puck out of mid air and into the back of the net to pad the St. Louis lead.

With the shutout bid holding well into the third period despite San Jose finally receiving two power plays of their own, the Sharks called Niemi to the bench, looking less for victory and more to at least ruin the shutout bid with their extra attacker.

After another save by Halak, the puck kicked across the ice to Alex Pietrangelo, and the defenseman sailed the puck down the length of the ice for his second goal of the evening with six seconds left in regulation.

Halak made 25 saves in his performance, and his sixth shutout of the season tied him for the NHL lead. With the Blues set to take on the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday, it seems quite possible that he will have the opportunity to break the three way tie.

NHL history was made at Joe Louis Arena Sunday night as Henrik Zetterberg scored a goal and added two assists to lead the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. It was the Wings' 20th straight victory in Hockeytown, tying the all-time League record that was shared by the 1929-30 Boston Bruins, and the 1975-76 Flyers. The Red Wings are now an incredible 23-2-1 on home ice.

With the triumph Detroit took the NHL lead in the Presidents' Trophy race with 78 points, one more than the New York Rangers.

The Red Wings can set the record for most consecutive home wins Tuesday night when they host the Dallas Stars.

Things looked good for the home team early on, as defenseman Niklas Kronwall's power play point blast found its way through a Todd Bertuzzi screen in front of Sergei Bobrovsky for his 12th goal of the year to give Detroit a 1-0 lead at 7:08 of the opening period.

But Philadelphia's Brayden Schenn appeared as if he would single-handedly rain on the anticipated parade, scoring with just 3:18 remaining in the first to tie it up, then ripping a Braydon Coburn rebound into the net behind Joey MacDonald for his eighth goal of the season just 5:22 into the second stanza to give the visitors a 2-1 lead. It was Schenn's first-career two-goal game, and gives the youngster six goals in his last nine contests.

Pavel Datsyuk scored his 15th of the year for the Red Wings' second power play goal of the evening just over three minutes later to knot the score at 3-3, but Maxime Talbot answered with his career-high 14th tally of the year with 3:41 left in the second period.

Detroit leveled the score before the end of the frame, as Zetterberg sent the teams to the dressing room at the second intermission tied at 3-3 with his 11th goal of the campaign.

Shortly after a Marc-Andre Bourdon penalty expired early in the third period, Zetterberg started the sequence for what would end up being the game-winning goal. The Swede sent a pass to fellow-contryman Nicklas Lidstrom, who sent a pass across to Johan Franzen at the side of the net for a tap in into the open side of the cage for his 22nd goal of the season and a 4-3 Red Wings' lead at the 52 second mark of the final frame.

MacDonald, who was brought to the team at the beginning of February due to an injury to starter Jimmy Howard, stopped all nine Philadelphia shots directed his way in the third to earn the his third consecutive victory, improving his record to 3-1-1. The goaltender finished the night with 26 saves on 29 Flyers' shots.

At the other end of the ice, Bobrovsky took his second loss of the weekend in place of usual netminder Ilya Bryzgalov, who remains out of the lineup with an illness. Bobrovsky stopped 21 of 25 Detroit shots in falling to 12-7-1 for the season.

The Flyers were done in by their terrible special teams play over the weekend, as they allowed five power play goals against the Rangers and Red Wings, while scoring none of their own. Philadelphia is now just 2-4-2 in their last eight games since the NHL All-Star break, and were tied in the Eastern Conference standings by the Pittsburgh Penguins, who defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier in the evening.

The Washington Capitals have won nine of 27 road games this season.

They have a 11.5 percent "success" rate on the power play on the road. They are currently on pace to break the 2005-06 Calgary Flames' dubious record of 34 road points since the advent of the shootout.

The bad luck continued Sunday as the Caps lost on the road once again in a 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers.

Washington failed to convert on two power plays, allowed a shorthanded goal and came up short despite a spirited performance in the third period. Such missed chances have haunted the Caps away from home ell season long. Things are starting to boil over. Via The Sporting News' Jesse Spector:

"You're watching the game, so you tell me," said [Jason] Chimera, who had six of the Capitals' 26 shots on goal. "You're watching it, obviously you thought we played like (crap). You're telling me we played bad, so that's obviously how we played. We played like crap. That's good. Put in the paper we played like crap. You can say that and (flippin') quote it, too."

Patience is starting to wear thin. If the Caps don't fix something, their playoff chances will be thin, too.