Rask stars as Boston shut out Dallas, powerplay goals see Tampa Bay past Detroit
>> BOSTON: Tuukka Rask made 27 saves for his seventh shut-out of the season and the Boston Bruins beat the Dallas Stars 2-0 on Thursday night.
Boston won their third straight and stayed three points ahead of Tampa Bay for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference with one game in hand.
Rask has won two straight since struggling for a stretch. He had allowed 18 goals during a four-game losing streak.
Brad Marchand gave Boston a 1-0 lead when he jammed a shot past goalie Antti Niemi at 15:14 minutes of the first period. Niemi had 22 saves and is winless in his last five appearances.
Torey Krug added an i nsurance goal early in the second when he converted a perfect feed from David Pastrnak.
In Tampa, Alex Killorn and Jonathan Drouin scored powerplay goals 1:51 minutes apart late in the second period of Tampa Bay’s 5-3 victory over Detroit.
JT Brown, Andrej Sustr and Yanni Gourde also scored for the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves.
Tampa Bay, who played without 38-goal scorer Nikita Kucherov due to illness, swept the five-game season series with the Red Wings.
Detroit got goals from Frans Nielsen, Danny DeKeyser and Mike Green. Petr Mrazek stopped 26 shots.
In Nashville, James van Riemsdyk and Auston Matthews each scored a powerplay goal, and Frederik Andersen made 29 saves to help Toronto defeat Nashville 3-1.
Connor Brown added an emptynet goal as the Maple Leafs started a three-game road trip by sweeping the season series with Nashville. They also won their second straight and fifth in six games to remain in third place in the Atlantic Division, one point ahead of Boston.
Filip Forsberg scored his 30th of the season for Nashville. The Predators have lost two straight after a fourgame winning streak.
Nashville came in three points shy of clinching their third straight playoff berth under Peter Laviolette, who coached his 1,000th NHL game.
In Philadelphia, Wayne Simmonds got his 30th goal of the season as Philadelphia scored five times in a fightfilled first period on the way to a 6-3 win over fading New York.
Dale Weise, Radko Gudas, Jordan Weal, Sean Couturier and Valtteri Filppula also scored for the Flyers, who won their third straight. Philadelphia are six points out of a play-off spot with five games remaining and need to jump four teams.
Cal Clutterbuck, Jason Chimera and Andrew Ladd had the goals for the Islanders, who fell into a tie with the Flyers at 82 points.