Hype for March 03, 2010

On an uncommon night when the biggest cheers were for an opposing player who didn't step on the ice, the Pittsburgh Penguins kept the Buffalo Sabres in their pre-Olympic slump.

Sidney Crosby? He didn't star in his first game since winning the Olympic gold for Canada, but the Penguins still had enough offence to beat the Sabres 3-2 as Ruslan Fedotenko had a goal and an assist and Sergei Gonchar scored his 200th career goal.

If the Edmonton Oilers had to do it all over again, they may have waited another two days before they traded Denis Grebeshkov to the Nashville Predators.

Jason Arnott scored the tiebreaking goal 5:02 into the third period, lifting Nashville to a 4-3 victory over Edmonton on Tuesday night.

That 16-day break between games apparently had no effect on Jonathan Quick and the Los Angeles Kings.

They just keep winning. Quick stopped 31 shots, Alexander Frolov had a goal and two assists and the Kings beat the Dallas Stars 5-1 on Tuesday night to improve to 11-1-1 in their last 13 games.

Ottawa has traded a second-round draft pick in this year's draft to the New York Islanders for defenceman Andy Sutton, a deal that Senators GM Brian Murray said was in the works for a few days.

"(Islanders GM Garth Snow) knew what he could get elsewhere and he was certainly fielding questions from other general managers," said Murray. "At the end of the day he came back and we talked and I guess I owe him something or vice versa, but we were able to make the deal."

The defending Stanley Cup champions have made a splash ahead of Wednesday's NHL trade deadline.

The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired Alexei Ponikarovsky from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for prospect Luca Caputi and defenceman Martin Skoula on Tuesday night.