No. 1 Star: Daniel Sedin, Vancouver Canucks
Showing no ill effects from the 12-day road trip from which they recently returned, the Sedins picked apart their second opponent in a row with their creepy twin wizard powers, orchestrating 3 goals in Vancouver's 4-0 win over the Minnesota Wild. Henrik Sedin had 1 goal and 2 assists, but Daniel wins top spot on the countdown with his three primary assists, of which this was the prettiest:
No. 2 Star: Brenden Morrow, Dallas Stars
Morrow opened the scoring midway through the 1st period and picked up a pretty assist in the Stars' 5-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks, setting up Mike Ribeiro for a powerplay goal with this pass off the end boards that I suspect was intentional.
Ribeiro had an assist as well. Michael Ryder scored the game-winner.
No. 3 Star: Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks
Hate to go back to Vancouver for this one, but of the many fine goaltending performances Monday night (James Reimer and Jonathan Quick were both fantastic in their game, for instance), Luongo's was the only one that ended in a goose egg. He was solid in goal for the Canucks, especially in the 1st period, when they seemed somewhat uninterested in winning. He made 33 saves in the shutout.
Honourable mention: Did I mentioned James Reimer and Jonathan Quick? The two goalies stopped 40 and 31 shots, respectively, in the Los Angeles Kings' 3-2 shootout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Mikhail Grabovski and Matt Frattin combined for this sweet goal:
... Tim Thomas was great too, stopping 33 shots in the Boston Bruins' 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens... Jean-Sebastian Giguere made 31 saves in the Colorado Avalanche's 3-2 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers, but the universe is humongous big, so Ilya Bryzgalov didn't worry about it.... Drew Miller scored the game-winner with five minutes to go in the third period as the Detroit Red Wings beat the Edmonton Oilers by the suddenly very common score of 3-2. Four of Monday night's six games ended with that score...
Did you know? The Bruins are already 16-0-0 when leading after 2 periods. [@TSNResearch]
Dishonourable mention: David Desharnais went a brutal 2-for-15 in the faceoff circle for the Canadiens, good for a win rate of .133. he was 0-for-6 against Chris Kelly and 0-for-11 outside the offensive zone. Why was he sent out for so many draws? Perhaps offensively monolingual coach Randy Cunneyworth couldn't read the French surname on his nameplate?