Knights nip Kings, close in on sweep
LOS ANGELES: James Neal scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:37 minutes to play, and the Vegas Golden Knights rallied from a third-period deficit to move to the brink of the expansion franchise’s first play-off series victory with a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night.
Cody Eakin tied it with 13:50 minutes left, and William Karlsson scored 21 seconds after Neal’s goal in a third-period flurry for the Golden Knights, whose storybook debut season just keeps getting more exciting and more outlandish.
After opening their first postseason series with two home wins, the hockey upstarts from the desert took a 3-0 series lead by coolly winning their first road playoff game in front of an angry sellout crowd at Staples Center, where two recent Stanley Cup banners hang above the ice.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 37 saves for the Golden Knights, who became the first team to take a 3-0 series lead in this postseason.
Vegas will go for a sweep in Game Four tonight in Los Angeles.
Matt Calvert scored 12:22 minutes into overtime, Sergei Bobrovsky made 54 saves and the Columbus Blue Jackets overcame two goals from Alex Ovechkin to beat the Washington Capitals 5-4 for a 2-0 lead in their play-off series.
Calvert’s goal held up after the NHL situation room reviewed the play for a possible offside. Calvert was just onside when Josh Anderson brought the puck into the zone.
Cam Atkinson scored twice, Anderson had a goal at even strength and Zack Werenski added one on the power play for the Blue Jackets.
Jay Beagle and TJ Oshie also scored for Washington, with Oshie tying it on a power play with 3:35 minutes left in the third period.
Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists and Matt Murray stopped 26 shots to help Pittsburgh silence a raucous Philadelphia crowd with a 5-1 victory and take a 2-1 lead in their first-round series.
Crosby scored his fourth goal of the series in the first period, and Derick Brassard, Evgeni Malkin and Brian Dumoulin scored in the second to make it 4-0. Malkin and Dumoulin scored five seconds apart.
Justin Schultz made it 5-1 in the third on Pittsburgh’s third power-play goal of the game.
In St Paul, Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise scored power-play goals in the first period for the spark Minnesota was missing on the road, and the Wild roared back to beat Winnipeg 6-2 in the Western Conference series. The Wild will try to tie the best-of-seven series 2-2 in Game Four at home tonight.