The Chicago Blackhawks have a goalie crisis and Arvid Soderblom will look to be at least the short-term answer Thursday night against the visiting Los Angeles Kings.

The Blackhawks lost Alex Stalock on Tuesday night when he was knocked out of a 3-1 loss to New York in the opening minutes after a collision with the Islanders’ Casey Cizikas. Petr Mrazek is already out due to a groin strain.

Stalock is in the concussion protocol, and Cizikas was hit with a game misconduct penalty and fined $5,000 Wednesday for goalie interference.

Soderblom, 23, entered three minutes in and allowed two goals while making 28 saves as the Blackhawks dropped their fourth straight (0-2-2).

“He was very calm and collected, just as he’s been,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said of Soderblom. “He’s like that in practice, made some really big saves for us and gave us a chance to stay in that game. He plays the puck well for a young goalie, too. That’s helpful for our D-core.”

Soderblom has appeared in two games this season and five in his career.

Jonathan Toews scored for the Blackhawks to cut the deficit to 2-1 midway through the third period, but the Islanders added an empty-net goal.

“I thought we came out a little bit flat,” said Chicago blueliner Caleb Jones. “It was a 1-0 game going into the third, and unfortunately, they got that one, but we battled back and got that one on the power play and we couldn’t find that other one. We’re in all these hockey games, we’ve just got to find a way to start pulling them out.”

Chicago has allowed 17 goals over its past four games.

Los Angeles split the first two games of a three-game road swing, winning 5-1 at St. Louis before dropping a 5-2 decision Tuesday night in Dallas. Kevin Fiala and Arthur Kaliyev scored for the Kings, who were playing the second of back-to-backs. Cal Petersen made 35 saves.

The Stars broke open a 1-1 game with three consecutive goals midway through the second period. Dallas finished 3-for-4 with the man advantage.

“If you don’t have your legs, you better have your brains, and we didn’t have either,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “That makes it a real tough night and that’s going to lead to penalties. The penalty kill did not get it done. We had it on our tape numerous times to clear and it didn’t come out.”

Fiala has eight points (two goals, six assists) during a five-game point streak for Los Angeles, which had won three of four before Tuesday.

“There’s no need for the frustration level to be high right now,” Kings forward Anze Kopitar said after the loss to Dallas. “We played a good game last night. We didn’t get it done tonight. There’s another game on Thursday (and) 2-1 on the trip would be a pretty good trip, so we’re going to rest tomorrow and get back at it on Thursday.”

Kings goalie Jonathan Quick is 15-16-2 with 2.58 goals-against average, .911 save percentage and three shutouts in 33 career games versus the Blackhawks.

Soderblom has never faced the Kings.

–Field Level Media

The Minnesota Wild’s injury report seems to grow by the day.

But they just keep on winning.

The Wild, who are scheduled to play the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night in St. Paul, Minn., were already without forwards Jordan Greenway (upper body), Marcus Foligno (upper body) and Ryan Hartman (upper body) before Brandon Duhaime left during the second period of Tuesday’s 4-1 victory against visiting Montreal with an upper-body injury.

Coach Dean Evason’s postgame evaluation of Duhaime’s injury was a succinct “it’s not good.”

Mason Shaw scored his second career goal in as many games and fellow rookie Marco Rossi earned his first NHL point with an assist on Kirill Kaprizov’s second goal of the night.

“It’s not tough. It’s exciting because you get to put people in opportunities to be successful,” Evason said of the youngsters in the lineup. “They all want to play, so you get an opportunity to place a guy in a spot that he wants and he’s hungry for.

“Clearly, we don’t want injuries. We’d like to have everybody healthy, but it happens. It’s a physical game, so it’s going to happen. Yeah, it’s exciting for us as an organization to see the progress, the development and the depth of our organization.”

Matt Boldy had a goal and an assist, Joel Eriksson Ek had two assists and Marc-Andre Fleury made 34 saves for the Wild, who have won two in a row and are 5-1-1 since opening the season with three consecutive defeats.

Fleury has allowed seven goals in winning four straight starts after allowing 11 goals in the first two games.

“A few in a row I feel like you get your momentum a bit,” Fleury said. “The confidence has been going all right.”

The Kraken got a confidence boost with a 5-4 victory Tuesday in Calgary as they rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period.

Rookie Matty Beniers netted the winner after Daniel Sprong scored on the power play and Yanni Gourde tallied on a short-handed breakaway. All three goals came in a five-minute span.

“We’ve got so much more confidence in this group,” Gourde said. “Last year was last year. We know we can rally back and we know we have the skills to do it. It’s a matter of just putting one shift together and then the next line is up. You just tilt the ice a little bit.”

The Kraken’s rally came after Calgary scored twice in a 17-second span early in the third to break a 2-2 tie.

“We probably would’ve liked to not give up two goals. I think we took a timeout and we kind of banded back together and were like ‘all right we’ve got this, lets calm down, it’s not over yet, we’ve got 18 minutes left,'” said Beniers, who extended his points streak to five games (four goals, one assist). “Slowly but surely, we got one, and then ‘Gourdo’ made a great play on the PK (and) got another one and we were able to finish it. It was good.”

Goaltender Joey Daccord, making his first appearance of the season with Philipp Grubauer out with a lower-body injury and Martin Jones away from the team for personal reasons, made 36 saves.

“Just finding timely plays and sticking with things, that’s how you come out of these types of games with two points,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said.

–Field Level Media

The New York Islanders and St. Louis Blues are traveling in opposite directions heading into their game Thursday night.

The streaking Islanders have won four straight games while the slumping Blues have recorded five consecutive regulation losses for the first time since February of 2018.

New York opened its three-game road trip with a 3-1 victory Tuesday at Chicago. The Blues, who fell to Los Angeles 5-1 Monday, will cap a three-game homestand when the Islanders pay a visit.

First-year Islanders coach Lane Lambert is pleased with the state of his team.

“I liked our compete, and I liked our battle,” Lambert said after his team dispatched the Blackhawks. “I thought going down a centerman early in the game, the guys showed a lot of resolve, guys who played in some unfamiliar areas. I thought they picked up the slack.”

The Islanders had to adjust to losing center Casey Cizkas, who exited with a game misconduct for goaltender interference against Chicago. Also, the Islanders were missing forward Matt Martin, who took a paternity leave.

But depth has been one of the Islanders’ strengths this season. They have seven players with three or more goals through 10 games, with Brock Nelson (four goals, seven assists) and Anders Lee (five goals, five assists) setting the pace. Mathew Barzal (10 assists) also is playing well.

Meanwhile, the Blues have been outscored 25-8 during their downturn while struggling in all facets of the game. Captain Ryan O’Reilly (one goal, no assists, minus-11 rating) and Jordan Kyrou (three goals, no assists, minus-13) have had an especially hard time.

“We’re not direct,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “And if you’re not direct, and you’re not predictable, and you’re not hungry, and you’re not desperate out there, if you don’t want to dig in and play hard, you’re gonna get beat. I don’t care what team you’re playing. You’ll get beat. And that’s got to change.”

Blues general manager Doug Armstrong addressed the team Tuesday and sounded a clear warning.

“We need to make sure that this is ground zero and start making our way up,” Armstrong said. “And what I said to the players — we may or may not win on Thursday. Obviously, we’re in the winning business, but what we need to see is a competitive level higher than what we have now.”

If Armstrong doesn’t see progress, the roster could be due for an overhaul.

“Everyone (has) the term retooling, rebuilding,” Armstrong said. “Whatever ‘re’ is, it sucks. I don’t want to be a ‘re’ anything. I want to continue what we’re doing now, and again, it’s very self-serving because I put this together. But we’re not in the belief business, we’re in the winning business.”

Blues winger Brandon Saad remains out of action with an upper-body injury. He is listed as day-to-day and did not practice Wednesday.

Martin is listed as day-to-day for the Islanders, but Lambert does expect him to return from paternity leave sometime during the team’s road trip.

–Field Level Media

The host Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens will each be looking for a bounce-back win on Thursday after struggling offensively in their previous game.

The Jets were held to just 24 shots in a 2-1 loss in overtime to the host Las Vegas Knights on Sunday, when Jack Eichel scored the game winner with seven seconds left. The Canadiens are coming off a 4-1 loss to the host Minnesota Wild on Tuesday when they scored once on 35 shots.

The Jets’ loss ended their three-game winning streak, while the Canadiens’ setback ended a two-game winning streak that came on the heels of a two-game losing slide.

Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck (4-2-1, 2.41 GAA) made 46 saves against the Golden Knights.

The Jets took a 1-0 lead on Adam Lowry’s goal 13 seconds into the third period, but Mark Stone equalized at the 7:13 mark before Eichel won it in overtime.

“It’s attention to detail. We talk about it, we’ve done our homework on it, we’re prepared for it, it’s just a matter of execution,” Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon said. “(Hellebuyck) played fantastic and I think, credit to us for finding a way to get it to overtime. We know we can be a lot better than that.

“Clearly, we didn’t deserve to win that one. We found different ways to win the first two. We have to be way better.”

The Jets, who had outscored their opponents 13-6 during their three-game winning streak, are led by center Mark Scheifele (team-high six goals), forward Blake Wheeler (two goals, five assists) and defenseman Josh Morrissey, whose team-high eight points have all come on assists.

“Right now I know how important every single point is,” Hellebuyck said. “Halfway through the season we’re going to be looking at numbers and crunching to see who we need to beat and stuff like that. It’s important to get it now.”

The Canadiens gave up three second-period goals to the Wild to fall behind 3-0 before center Nick Suzuki’s goal trimmed it to 3-1 with 6:30 left in the game. Matt Boldy’s empty-net goal with a little more than three minutes left sealed Minnesota’s victory.

Jake Allen (3-4-0, 2.88 GAA) made 27 saves for the Canadiens, who outshot the Wild 35-31 and won 62 percent of faceoffs.

“I felt like we outplayed them for the whole game almost,” Suzuki said. “(We’re) always battling, we know we’re never out of it down two, down three. We’ve got the talent to come back and guys to make big plays.”

Montreal is led by Suzuki’s 11 points (five goals, team-high six assists) and forward Cole Caufield’s team-high seven goals and three assists.

The Canadiens entered Wednesday averaging just 2.8 goals per game, which ranks only ahead of Toronto (2.7), Philadelphia (2.66) and Columbus (2.6) in the Eastern Conference.

The Jets have dominated the Canadiens recently, winning five of the past six meetings dating to a 4-3 win on March 18, 2021.

–Field Level Media

The Boston Bruins and New York Rangers spent Tuesday night working overtime to extend their respective winning streaks.

Heading into Thursday’s encounter at Madison Square Garden, the Bruins are off to a sizzling start while the Rangers are beginning to heat up after a small rough patch.

The Bruins are riding a six-game winning streak and boast an NHL-best 4.40 goals per game entering Wednesday’s play.

Boston is 8-0-0 when leading through the opening 20 minutes. The Bruins’ latest victory was an impressive comeback resulting in a 6-5 overtime win at Pittsburgh.

Boston overcame a 5-2 deficit in the final 28:24 of regulation before defenseman Hampus Lindholm scored the game-winning goal 3:37 into overtime. Brad Marchand scored his third goal since making his season debut last week, Pavel Zacha made it a one-goal game and Taylor Hall netted the tying goal with 1:17 left in regulation.

“They believe in there,” first-year Boston coach Jim Montgomery said. “It’s incredible. It was 5-3 in the third period and we’re generating chances, and I’m just sitting there (thinking) I just love the fight in this team. There were like nine minutes left and it might not be our night … but Jesus, it was.”

Lindholm scored shortly after serving a tripping penalty. His four-point night on Tuesday boosted his season total to 11 (three goals, eight assists).

“It’s great to see the resilience,” Lindholm said. “People are working for each other, (I’m) super stoked about the team win.”

Perhaps equally as impressive was Linus Ullmark returning to improve to 7-0-0 after being pulled.

Ullmark was pulled after allowing the fifth goal but finished his latest win after Jeremy Swayman exited with a lower-body injury. His 7-0-0 start is the best by a Boston goalie since Tim Thomas opened 8-0-0 in 2010-11.

The Rangers dropped four straight games for the first time under coach Gerard Gallant last week when they went 0-2-2 against San Jose, Columbus, Colorado and the New York Islanders.

They responded to the skid by earning wins over Dallas, Arizona and Philadelphia. The streak began with a 6-3 win over the Stars on Saturday and Mika Zibanejad scored the go-ahead power-play goal in the third period to get a 3-2 win against the Coyotes.

On Tuesday, the Rangers earned a 1-0 win after Chris Kreider scored 4:07 into overtime. The goal came on the Rangers’ 36th shot on goal.

“There’s definitely times we get a little bit frustrated,” Kreider said. “Just because that might wear on you a little bit doesn’t mean you get away from your game. And I thought we stuck with it.”

Kreider scored after getting a pass from Zibanejad, who has collected five of his 13 points during the winning streak.

The Rangers won two of three meetings with Boston last season, including a 2-1 home win on Feb. 15 when K’Andre Miller scored the deciding goal in the ninth round of the shootout.

–Field Level Media

After recording their second consecutive overtime victory, the Vegas Golden Knights will take a five-game winning streak into Canada as they continue their five-game trip on Thursday night against Ottawa.

Vegas also will visit Montreal on Saturday and Toronto on Tuesday before finishing the trip at Buffalo on Nov. 10.

The Golden Knights have won nine of their first 11 games and are tied with Boston for the most points in the NHL with 18. The Eastern Conference-leading Bruins have played one fewer game, however.

After defeating the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 in dramatic fashion on Sunday in Las Vegas on a Jack Eichel goal with seven seconds left in overtime, Vegas posted a 3-2 come-from-behind overtime victory over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday.

William Carrier tied the contest with 5:56 left in the third period, and Shea Theodore, off a pass into the slot from Eichel, won it 1:35 into overtime.

It was Carrier’s eighth career overtime winner.

“Pretty special player,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said of Eichel, who capped his second straight multi-point game with the impressive assist to Theodore. “When there’s time and space for Jack, he’s one of those dynamic players people pay money to see.”

“He’s a skilled player with the puck,” added Theodore, who roofed a close-in shot over Washington goalie Charlie Lindgren off Eichel’s setup. “If you can read his eyes and get to a good spot, he’ll find you.”

Eichel, who also had a first-period power-play goal against the Capitals, has a team-high 12 points after 11 games.

Cassidy said the comeback win provided some key momentum going forward on the lengthy road trip.

“If you’re going to have a good road trip, the first one is a win of some sort, usually a character win,” Cassidy said. “We’re on to the next nation’s capital but it’s a good start. Guys usually feel good about themselves when things like that happen.”

Next up is a Senators team that wasn’t feeling so good after its game on Tuesday, a 4-3 loss at Tampa Bay.

It was the third straight loss for Ottawa, which was up 3-2 midway through the third period on a Claude Giroux goal. However, the Senators allowed two goals down the stretch, the final one on a Nikita Kucherov one-timer with 2:30 to go.

“You’ve got to learn to close games out, get the point when you have to, and we just didn’t get it done,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “Again, we gave up a late goal. At that point, there has to be desperation down low in your own zone. We gave a couple guys open looks. We have the lead with seven minutes to go and you’ve got to learn to manage that way better.”

On the bright side, Ottawa killed seven of eight penalties while also getting Mathieu Joseph’s shorthanded goal.

“The penalty kill was great,” Smith said. “There were some bad calls and whatever the case may be, but we just made some really bad plays in the third period. They (ended) up in the back of the net.”

“I don’t know if we should have won this game,” Joseph added. “That’s a good team, and they don’t panic out there. They have good players who make big plays at big moments and they don’t stop. We were just a little bit immature to finish the game.”

–Field Level Media

The Carolina Hurricanes finished off one Eastern Conference rival on Monday.

Now, the Hurricanes will try to beat the East’s top club over the past three seasons.

Carolina will square off against the defending conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night in the first matchup of the season between the playoff regulars.

On Monday in Raleigh, Carolina took Washington to a shootout before goalie Frederik Andersen made a final stop on the Capitals’ Dylan Strome to earn a 3-2 victory.

In the triumph, Andrei Svechnikov tallied in regulation and produced the deciding goal in the one-on-one session, while fellow right winger Stefan Noesen scored his first goal for Carolina.

The flashy Svechnikov recorded his team-best eighth goal to become only the second player in the Hartford/Carolina organization’s history to net eight times in the first nine games of a season. Geoff Sanderson notched that many in the 1993-94 season.

Martin Necas had two assists to stretch his point streak to four games (two goals, four assists) — his second such streak through nine games.

Brent Burns also has a four-game point streak — the longest by a Carolina defenseman to this point.

“It’s not surprising — you’ve seen it in spurts for how many years now,’ coach Rod Brind’Amour said of Necas. “It’s always about the consistency. That’s what it’s about being a pro. He’s definitely figuring that out.

“He’s been a difference-maker. I think he’s maturing physically, and the gifts he has are that much better because he’s a little stronger. He’s been around the league a little bit now.”

The coach said Calvin de Haan (undisclosed injury) is close to returning. The 31-year-old blueliner hasn’t played since Oct. 22 in Calgary.

After over 57 minutes trying to decipher its frustrating power play, Tampa Bay pulled out a 4-3 win over Ottawa on Tuesday when Nikita Kucherov netted the game-winning goal with 2:30 remaining.

The Lightning, who have won three straight matches, outshot the Senators 34-15.

Usually one of the best man-advantage units in the league, the Lightning went just 1-for-8, even squandering a 1:35 span with a five-on-three advantage. In that time, former teammate Mathieu Joseph beat Stamkos in a puck race and scored short-handed on a breakaway to put Ottawa ahead 2-1.

Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said the failure on power plays, not five-on-five action, hindered his teammates all night.

“That was a weird one, for sure,” Stamkos said of Tampa Bay’s ninth win in the past 12 games against its division opponent. “You know, five-on-five, I thought we were great. It was almost a case of too many power plays tonight. When it’s not working it can snowball, and we let it snowball. And that’s on us. It almost cost us the game there.

“But we stuck with it … (and) the guys who stepped up in the third were the guys who felt we needed to play a lot better, and we did.”

Kucherov’s goal and two assists vs. Ottawa moved his point streak to eight games. Top defenseman Victor Hedman (upper-body injury) missed the game and is day-to-day.

–Field Level Media