Morning Bag Skate: A win's a win

This just in: hockey's weird.

On Tuesday night, the 'Hawks scored exactly zero times as Semyon Varlamov recorded a 54-save shutout for the Avalanche. The Hawks followed up the defeat by being thoroughly outplayed by the Wild for the last 40 minutes on Thursday night, yet escaped with a 4-2 victory on 20 shots. But hey, two points, and on a night the Predators and Blues also earned two points.

Onward:

**The skaters in front of him struggled, but Corey Crawford played his best game since returning from injury (Sun-Times)

**Sometimes we're reminded sports are simply a game. Thursday was one of those perspective-gaining days, as J.P. Parise, father of Zach, passed away (Star Tribune)

**To honor Parise, the Wild put together one helluva tribute video (Puck Daddy)

**The Predators tacked on another two points Thursday night (NHL)

**In honor of St. Louis potentially losing its NFL team, the Blues keep scoring touchdowns (Post-Dispatch)

**I wish we would've been able to see this on Road To The Winter Classic (Puck Daddy)

**The Bruins looked like the Bruins again in a 3-0 victory against the Devils (CSNNE)

**Roberto Luongo returned to Vancouver for the first time since being traded, and the Canucks paid tribute. I'd take a jab here, but the man's Twitter game is simply too strong. (PHT)

**And speaking of Twitter...NHL team Twitter accounts are the best team Twitter accounts. The Phoenix Coyotes of Arizona offered the latest evidence Thursday afternoon (PHT)