NHL Daily Fix: Goaltending still carrying Ottawa

The NHL Daily Fix is your morning wakeup call, with news and notes for the day's hockey action.

By Adam Gretz

Mar 29, 2013 at 5:25 am ET • 1 min read

The NHL Daily Fix is your morning wakeup call, with news and notes for the day's hockey action.

Morning Buzz

Even with all of the injuries, the Ottawa Senators are still on the fast track to the NHL playoffs, and they can thank their young goaltenders, Robin Lehner and Ben Bishop, for helping to cary them there in the absence of starter Craig Anderson. Bishop was great in a 3-0 shutout over the New York Rangers on Thursday night, making several key saves including the sprawling stop shown above.

Even without Anderson for the past month they still lead the NHL in save percentage with a .939 mark, while Bishop and Robin Lehner haven't missed a beat. [NHL Leaders]

The Islanders continue to make life miserable for the teams at the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture and are still breathing down the New York Rangers' neck. Their come-from-behind win in Philadelphia, combined with the Rangers' loss to Ottawa, has the two teams tied with 35 points for the No. 8 spot. The Rangers still have a game in hand, but the Islanders aren't quite ready to check out of the race. [Recap]

The Phoenix Coyotes snapped their losing streak on Thursday with a blowout 7-4 win in Nashville. Almost all of the goal-scoring came in the first period as the Coyotes jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the game's first 10 minutes as the two teams combined for nine goals in the opening period. If you asked me to pick two teams in the NHL that would score nine goals in a period, these two would not have been my choices. [Recap]

Should the Oilers trade Ales Hemsky to Boston? [Edmonton Journal]

The Flyers blew a lead against the Islanders on Thursday night and were sent to the loss column once again. That's bad for the Flyers. But Claude Giroux scored that nifty shootout goal above and that ... well, it really doesn't matter for the Flyers at this point. But it was still a sweet move.