Boston wraps up 1st in Atlantic, one W away from club record

Garnet Hathaway scored the tiebreaking goal late in the second period and the NHL-best Boston Bruins wrapped up first place in the Atlantic Division with their sixth straight victory, 2-1 over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.

The win was the Bruins’ 56th and moves them one behind the club record set in 1970-71. It also keeps them on pace to set the NHL record for victories in a regular season with 10 games left. The Detroit Red Wings won 62 in 1995-96 and Tampa Bay matched it in 2018-19.

Patrice Bergeron added a power-play goal for the Bruins and Linus Ullmark made 26 saves, raising his record to 36-5-1.

Victor Hedman had a short-handed score for the Lightning and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 32 shots. Tampa Bay has lost four straight.

KINGS 4, JETS 1

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Viktor Arvidsson had two goals and Los Angeles matched its longest point streak in franchise history.

Drew Doughty had a goal and an assist and Alex Iafallo netted a power-play goal for Los Angeles, which has earned points in 11 straight games for the fourth time. The last was 2013-14, when the Kings won their second Stanley Cup. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 25 shots for Los Angeles.

Arvidsson — who has 22 goals on the season — has four in the last four games, while Doughty has found the net four times in the last five games.

Pierre-Luc Dubois scored for Winnipeg and Connor Hellebuyck made 25 saves.

DEVILS 5, SENATORS 3

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Jack Hughes had a goal and an assist, Mackenzie Blackwood had 25 saves and New Jersey defeated Ottawa to clinch a playoff berth.

New Jersey could have clinched its first postseason berth since 2018 with a win, but it happened before their first intermission when Florida lost to the New York Rangers in regulation.

Jesper Bratt, Dawson Mercer and Dougie Hamilton scored for the Devils, and Tomas Tatar added an empty-netter with 42.3 seconds left to put things away.

Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot and Mark Kastelic scored for the Senators. Dylan Ferguson had 30 saves.

PENGUINS 4, CAPITALS 3

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Evgeni Malkin beat Darcy Kuemper on a breakaway with 1:20 left in regulation to lift Pittsburgh over Washington.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 42nd goal of the season and 822nd of his career during a furious third-period rally by the Capitals that saw them erase a three-goal deficit. Washington drew even when Dylan Strome flipped the puck into an open net with 2:44 to go in regulation.

Ryan Poehling and Chad Ruhwedel scored a little over two minutes apart in the second period for Pittsburgh. Jake Guentzel added his team-high 32nd goal early in the third before Washington scrambled back. Casey DeSmith made 31 saves.

Tom Wilson had the other goal for the Capitals. Kuemper stopped 36 shots.

RANGERS 4, PANTHERS 3

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Patrick Kane scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period as New York rallied from two goals down to beat Florida.

Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil each had a goal and an assist to help New York win for the eighth time in 10 games. Jaroslav Halak stopped 31 shots to snap a four-game skid (0-2-2) and get his first win since Feb. 11 at Carolina.

Aleksander Barkov had two goals and Ryan Lomberg also scored for Florida, which has lost three straight. Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 38 saves.

KRAKEN 7, PREDATORS 2

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Eeli Tolvanen scored twice and Philipp Grubauer made 14 saves in Seattle’s win over Nashville.

Jared McCann had a goal and two assists. Daniel Sprong, Adam Larsson, Matty Beniers and Oliver Bjorkstrand also scored for Seattle, which entered Saturday holding the top spot in the Western Conference’s wild-card race. Vince Dunn had two assists.

Matt Duchene and Tyson Barrie each had a goal and an assist and Juuse Saros made 32 saves for Nashville, which had its two-game winning streak snapped. The Predators remained five points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the West’s second wild-card berth.

FLYERS 3, RED WINGS 0

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Carter Hart made 29 saves, Scott Laughton scored and Philadelphia won its third straight with a shutout of Detroit.

Kieffer Bellows also scored and Tyson Foerster had an empty-netter for Philadelphia in a matchup of two of the Eastern Conference’s worst teams.

The Red Wings have lost five of six and were 0 for 7 on the power play.

SABRES 2, ISLANDERS 0

NEW YORK (AP) — Kyle Okposo scored with 6 1/2 minutes remaining, Eric Comrie stopped 27 shots for his second career shutout and Buffalo beat New York.

Jeff Skinner added an empty-net goal to help Buffalo win its second straight after losing the previous four.

Semyon Varlamov finished with 33 saves for the Islanders, who lost their second straight. They had won 11 straight at home against the Sabres.

FLAMES 5, SHARKS 3

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Tyler Toffoli scored two goals and Calgary kept its playoff hopes alive by beating San Jose.

MacKenzie Weegar, Walker Duehr and Nazem Kadri added the others for Calgary, which won for just the second time in its last nine games at the Saddledome (2-5-2). Jacob Markstrom made 28 saves. With the victory, the Flames climbed back to within four points of the Winnipeg Jets, who occupy the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Logan Couture, Nico Sturm and Martin Kaut replied for San Jose, which had its winless skid extended to nine games (0-6-3). Kaapo Kahkonen had 25 stops. Erik Karlsson’s two assists helped him reach 68 on the year to surpass his previous career-high of 66 in 2015-16 and break the Sharks record for helpers by a defenseman. Brent Burns previously held it with 67 in 2018-19.

WILD 3, BLACKHAWKS 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Ryan Hartman scored with 1:11 remaining in the third period and Minnesota topped Chicago.

Ryan Reaves and Frederick Gaudreau also scored for Minnesota, and Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in goal.

The Wild have points in four straight games after their franchise-record 14-game point streak was snapped on March 18.

Lukas Reichel scored for Chicago, which has lost four in a row. Former Minnesota goaltender Alex Stalock made 22 saves for the Blackhawks.

CANADIENS 8, BLUE JACKETS 2

MONTREAL (AP) — Rafael Harvey-Pinard scored three goals for his first career hat trick and Montreal beat Columbus.

Nick Suzuki had a goal and three assists, Mike Hoffman had a goal and two assists, Brendan Gallagher and Jesse Ylonen each added a goal and an assist, and Alex Belzile also scored for Montreal. Mike Matheson had three assists and Johnathan Kovacevic had two.

Sam Montembault stopped 21 shots to help Montreal win for the third time in 13 games (3-8-2).

Lane Pederson and Kirill Marchenko scored for the Blue Jackets, whose two-game winning streak ended. They lost for the fourth time in six games. Elvis Merzlikins was pulled late in the second period after giving up six goals on 24 shots.

HURRICANES 5, MAPLE LEAFS 3

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Sebastian Aho scored his team-leading 32nd goal of the season with 2:26 remaining to lift Carolina past Toronto..

Aho’s goal came 32 seconds after Auston Matthews’ second goal for Toronto tied the game. Teuvo Teravainen added an empty-netter to seal it for the Hurricanes.

Brent Burns, Jordan Staal and Stefan Noesen also scored for Carolina, which won for the fourth time in its last eight games to maintain first place in Metropolitan Division. Jesper Fast and Martin Necas both two assists. Pyotr Kochetkov made 41 saves for his first victory in his last three outings.

Calle Jarnkrok had Toronto’s first goal. Matt Murray made 23 saves. Matthews has 36 goals this season, including eight in the last nine games.

CANUCKS 3, STARS 1

DALLAS (AP) — Brock Boeser scored the go-ahead goal in the second period and Vancouver held Dallas scoreless on four power plays, including one late in the third period.

Jack Rathbone and Dakota Joshua also scored for Vancouver, which swept the three-game season series against Dallas and has won the past six meetings dating to last season. Thatcher Demko made 19 saves to help the Canucks open a three-game road trip with a victory.

Ryan Suter scored the lone goal for Dallas, which closed out a 1-1-1 homestand.

GOLDEN KNIGHTS 4, OILERS 3, OT

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Nicolas Roy scored the winning goal 2:26 in overtime, Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Vegas topped Edmonton for its fourth straight victory. Roy was left alone in front of Edmonton’s net and shot in his own rebound past Stuart Skinner for the win.

Pavel Dorofeyev and Jonathan Marchessault also scored for the Knights, who have won eight of their last nine and are 17-3-2 since the All-Star break.

Zach Hyman, Leon Draisaitl and Warren Foegele scored for the Oilers, who had their five-game winning streak snapped. Draisaitl’s 28th power-play goal was the most by any player in a season since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96.

BLUES 6, DUCKS 3

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brayden Schenn and Kasperi Kapanen had two goals and an assist apiece in St. Louis’ win over Anaheim.

Jakub Vrana and Sammy Blais also scored in a three-goal first period, and Jordan Binnington made 22 saves in St. Louis’ fourth win in five games. The Blues scored at least five goals for the third time in their last six games.

Nikita Nesterenko scored his first NHL goal and John Gibson stopped 30 shots for the Ducks, who have lost four straight. Troy Terry and Ryan Strome also scored as lottery-bound Anaheim dropped to 1-5-1 on its eight-game homestand in the final weeks of its franchise-record fifth consecutive non-playoff season.

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