Bruins move ahead of Lighting in Atlantic with 2-1 OT win
TAMPA, Fla. — Charlie Coyle scored 3:37 into overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night.
Coyle picked up a loose puck to the right of Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, came out in front and scored on a quick wrist shot.
Jake DeBrusk scored the other goal for Boston, which got 28 saves from Linus Ullmark. The Bruins improved to 8-3 in their last 11 games.
Pierre-Édouard Bellemare had the only goal for Tampa Bay, which is 0-2-2 in its past four games and fell one point behind Boston in the race for third place in the Atlantic Division. Vasilevskiy finished with 36 saves.
AVALANCHE 5, JETS 4, OT
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Cale Makar scored a power-play goal 2:42 into overtime to lift NHL-leading Colorado past Winnipeg.
Andre Burakovsky and Nathan MacKinnon each had a goal and an assist, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Erik Johnson and Nathan MacKinnon also scored for the Avalanche, who have won five straight. Makar added an assist. Pavel Francouz stopped 39 shots for Colorado, which is 9-1-1 in its last 11 games.
Mark Scheifele and Nikolaj Ehlers both scored twice and added an assist for Winnipeg, which is winless in four games (0-3-1). Connor Hellebuyck made 32 saves in his 60th game of the season for the Jets, who went 0-2-1 during a three-game homestand.
Scheifele’s second goal made it 4-3 with 3:35 left in the third period. Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen then took a penalty with 44 seconds left. The Jets pulled Hellebuyck for a two-man advantage and Ehlers scored with 16 seconds remaining to send it to overtime.
PANTHERS 4, SABRES 3
SUNRISE, Fla. — Sam Bennett scored with 37.3 seconds left to lift Florida over Buffalo.
Sam Reinhart and Claude Giroux each had a goal and an assist, and Patric Hornqvist also scored for the Panthers. Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves.
Jeff Skinner, Mark Pysyk and Victor Olofsson scored for the Sabres, and Dustin Tokarski stopped 39 shots.
Aleksander Barkov passed from the left circle to Bennett in front and he poked the puck in the net to cap a comeback from a 3-1 deficit. The Panthers won their 30th home game of the season, extending the franchise record, and got their franchise-record 50th win of season.
ISLANDERS 2, HURRICANES 1
RALEIGH, N.C. — Kyle Palmieri scored with 14.1 seconds remaining in a wild final minute to lift New York past Carolina.
Ilya Sorokin needed only 19 saves to pick up the victory, though he was less than a minute away from matching a franchise record for shutouts in a season. But Vincent Trocheck’s goal with 56.8 seconds to play tied it for Carolina.
Still, the Islanders won for the fifth time in their last six games — thanks to Palmieri’s clutch goal.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau also scored for New York, and Palmieri had an assist on that goal.
A night after clinching a playoff spot for the fourth year in a row, the Hurricanes weren’t crisp at all on their way to losing for the third time in four games. Frederik Andersen made 19 saves.
BLUES 4, WILD 3, OT
ST. LOUIS — Robert Thomas scored at 1:27 of overtime to give St. Louis a victory over Minnesota.
Thomas took a pass from Vladimir Tarasenko and scored on a slap shot from the left faceoff circle. The Blues overcame a 3-1 deficit to leapfrog Minnesota in the Central Division standings in the battle for home ice in the first round of the playoffs.
Brayden Schenn, Pavel Buchnevich and Justin Faulk also scored for St. Louis, which has won four straight and is on a 6-0-1 run. Ville Husso made 35 saves.
Kirill Kaprizov scored his 41st goal for Minnesota to move within a goal of tying the Wild season record held by Marian Gaborik (2007-08) and Eric Staal (2017-18). Kevin Fiala and Jacob Middleton also scored for Minnesota, and Cam Talbot made 24 saves.
