Greiss helps Islanders shut out Canadiens
Flames’ Monahan scores 100th career goal
>> MONTREAL: Rookie Anthony Beauvillier scored in the first period and Thomas Greiss made 24 saves as the New York Islanders beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-0.
Anders Lee scored in the second period and John Tavares added an empty-netter in the final minute to seal the Islanders’ third straight win.
The Islanders have won the first two games on a crucial nine-game road swing and improved to 12-4-2 since interim coach Doug Weight replaced the fired Jack Capuano.
Josh Bailey and Brock Nelson each had two assists, and Greiss got his third shut-out of the season.
Carey Price finished with 21 saves as the Canadiens lost coach Claude Julien’s 1,000th NHL game. Montreal are 1-2-0 since Julien replaced Michel Therrien last week and has totalled just 14 goals while going 2-7-1 in the last 10 games, including four shut-outs.
In Toronto, Mika Zibanejad scored the shoot-out winner and the New York Rangers continued a strong February with a 2-1 win.
Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves and JT Miller scored the tying goal in the third period for the Rangers, who improved to 8-1-1 this month.
New York moved into third place in the Metropolitan Division.
In Los Angeles, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak scored their 26th goals of the season, and Boston improved to 5-1-0 under interim coach Bruce Cassidy with a 4-1 win.
Anton Khudobin made 27 saves in his second start since Christmas for the Bruins, who nursed an early lead to their first win in Los Angeles since March 24, 2012.
Pastrnak punctuated a strong allaround game with his seventh powerplay goal of the season early in the second period.
Dominic Moore ended his 26-game goal drought with an empty-net score, and David Krejci added another empty-netter with 7.2 seconds left.
Kevin Gravel scored his first NHL goal and Peter Budaj stopped 21 shots for the Kings, who have lost six of eight.
In Tampa, Sean Monahan scored his 100th NHL goal, Brian Elliott made 23 saves, and Calgary kept up their strong play.
Dougie Hamilton had a goal and two assists, and Mikael Backlund also scored to help the Flames beat the Lightning 3-2 and improve to 7-2-1 over their last 10 games.
Tampa Bay, which entered with a seven-game points streak (5-0-2), got goals from Vladislav Namestnikov and Nikita Kucherov. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 22 shots.
After Blacklund scored 5:04 minutes into the second, Monahan put the Flames up 2-1 just 1:21 minutes later on his 20th goal this season.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Monahan, at 22 years and 134 days, is the sixth-youngest active NHL player to reach 100 goals. The five to do it quicker are Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, Alex Ovechkin and Patrick Kane.
Hamilton and Kucherov both had power-play goals late in third period.
In Nashville, Filip Forsberg scored his second straight hat-trick, and Nashville beat Colorado 4-2 to complete a sweep of the five-game season series with Central Division rivals.
Forsberg, who now has a team-high 22 goals, has five goals combined in his last two second periods. Forsberg, who scored three times in the second period of Tuesday night’s overtime loss to Calgary, got the hat-trick with 36.5 seconds left.
Viktor Arvidsson also scored a goal, and Roman Josi and Ryan Johansen each added two assists as Nashville won their fifth and final game against Colorado this season.
Jarome Iginla had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, who have lost three straight. Peter Wiercioch also had a goal.
In Chicago, Patrick Kane scored three goals for his third career hattrick to lead Chicago to a 6-3 win over Phoenix — their third straight and eighth in nine games.
Kane has 23 goals to lead the Blackhawks, who closed three points behind first-place Minnesota in the Central Division and Western Conference.
Rookies Nick Schmaltz and Ryan Hartman each had a goal and assist. Blackhawks defenceman Michal Rozsival scored his first goal of the season in his first game since Jan 15.
Chicago captain Jonathan Toews added two assists to extend his points scoring streak to five games and increase his output to 22 points in his past 13.
Jakob Chychrun, Ryan White and Radim Vrbata scored for the Coyotes.