NHL Notebook: Blues brave cold to win Winter Classic

Let’s recap some of the recent major NHL headlines from on and off the ice.

Blues tame Wild at Target Field

Jordan Kyrou (two goals and two assists) enabled the St. Louis Blues to cruise past the Minnesota Wild in Saturday’s Winter Classic, 6-4. Kyrou scored all four of his points in the second period. Remarkably, no player had ever scored more than three points in an entire outdoor game in NHL history.

The victory enabled the Blues to leapfrog the Wild in the Central Division standings. Yet St. Louis is still +2200 to win the Stanley Cup, while the Wild are +1400.

Ovechkin breaks power play goal record

Alex Ovechkin scored his NHL-record 275th power play goal in the waning minutes of a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Friday. The record-breaking tally – which came just as a Detroit penalty was expiring – was originally scored as an even-strength goal before being changed by the league in a postgame timing review.

“If [Ovechkin] continued to stay healthy, and wanted to play, he was eventually going to go by me,” original record-holder Dave Andreychuk told NHL.com earlier this season. “I had a good run.”

Ovechkin – fourth on the all-time scoring list – is one tally off the current NHL lead enjoyed by the Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl (25).

COVID continues to "K.O." games in Canada

The NHL postponed nine additional games on Dec. 28 due to attendance concerns in Canada, bringing the league-wide postponement total to 80 games.

Strict indoor attendance restrictions have become the norm again in Canada, and the league is hoping to protect gate revenue for its seven northernmost clubs.

“We have always had the issue of differing rules in different jurisdictions, so it’s not a new challenge,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly told the AP. “[We are] navigating choppy waters the best we can.”

Kraken fan rewarded after cancer discovery

Hockey fan Nadia Popovici was rewarded by the Seattle Kraken and the Vancouver Canucks with a $10,000 scholarship for her discovery of what turned out to be a malignant melanoma mole on Canucks assistant equipment manager Brian “Red” Hamilton’s neck.

Popovici – a Kraken fan – was seated behind the visitor’s bench on Oct. 23 when she noticed Hamilton’s condition. She got his attention and showed him a message she wrote on her phone, advising him to get it checked out. Hamilton eventually did, and doctors were able to treat him.

In a heartwarming video shared on the Canucks’ social media accounts, Hamilton met Popovici face-to-face so he could thank her.