NHL Thursday: Kings cruise; Rangers survive Wings

First, he goes out of his way to make a kick save on that. And then he wastes no time making sure he sends the puck into the skirmish.

The NHL probably isn’t going to like that.

In hindsight, it was pretty ridiculous that goalies played without any sort of protection on their face for as long as they did. The goalie mask It’s such a common sense piece of equipment that no sane person in the modern day game would ever dream of going without it. You would have to be a complete lunatic to even think about it.

And the gruesome aftermath…

So what happened on that one shot? A microcosm of the Red Wings’ season.

That’s just too bad.

That could have been disaster for the Predators as an innocent dump-in took a weird bounce off the boards and went right to Raffl as Hutton was still behind the net.

From there, a sure goal turned into one of the best saves of the season.

On Thursday, general manager Dave Nonis appeared on TSN Radio 1250 and addressed the trade speculation. While he said that he’s not actively shopping Kadri and isn’t close to doing so, he did admit that he would be “willing” to do it if they received the right package.

“There’s a lot of interest in Nazem Kadri and would we be willing to trade him? Yes, we’d be willing to trade him, but there’s a big difference between willing to and trying to,” Nonis said. “We’re not trying to move him. I’m not anywhere near trading Nazem Kadri.”

They’re two of the best teams in the league and two of the toughest teams to score against, entering the night first (Kings) and third (Blues) in goals against. Given their ability to shut teams down, combined with the Kings’ recent struggles offensively, four goals between the two of them seems like a reasonable bar to set. Will they reach it?

• Power rankings: Blues rise to the top