Flyers close in on first place
WASHINGTON: Kevin Hayes and Ivan Provorov each finished with a goal and an assist as the visiting Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Washington Capitals 5-2 on Wednesday night.
The Flyers now have won seven straight games, scoring four or more goals in each, and pulled within one point of first-place Washington in the tight Metropolitan Division. All wasn’t rosy, however, as left wing James van Riemsdyk suffered a fractured right hand in the first period.
This was the final meeting of the season between the two teams, and the Flyers won the series 3-0-1, constantly giving Washington problems a season after being swept in all four meetings by the Capitals. In their previous meeting a month ago, Philadelphia rolled to a 7-2 victory in the nation’s capital.
Travis Konecny, Tyler Pitlick and Scott Laughton each added a goal apiece, while Derek Grant added two assists.
Defenceman TJ Brodie finished a wild scramble with the overtime gamewinner with 11 seconds remaining as Calgary opened their five-game homestand with a 3-2 comeback win over visiting Columbus.
The win was Calgary’s eighth comeback win while trailing entering the third period, behind just the Washington Capitals and Dallas Stars (nine each) for tops in the NHL.
Elias Lindholm tallied for the 29th time, Matthew Tkachuk tied the game late and centre Derek Ryan played in his 300th career game for Calgary, who are 4-1-1 in their last six and will play 10 of their remaining 14 regular-season games at home.
Rickard Rakell scored for the first time in 16 games with 1.2 seconds left in overtime, and Anaheim beat Colorado 4-3 in Denver.
Rakell added an assist, Ryan Miller stopped 32 shots, and Sam Steel, Andrew Agozzino and Brendan Guhle also had goals for the Ducks, who ended a two-game skid.
Gabriel Landeskog had a goal and two assists, Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist, and Vladislav Namestnikov scored for Colorado, who had their seven-game winning streak snapped. Pavel Francouz had 26 saves in losing for the first time in seven starts.
Lawson Crouse scored the tiebreaking goal at 12:39 minutes of the third period as visiting Arizona topped Vancouver 4-2 to pull into a three-way tie atop the Western Conference’s wildcard standings.
Carl Soderberg, Nick Schmaltz and Oliver Ekman-Larsson also scored for the Coyotes, who improved to 9-2-1 in their past 12 games against Vancouver. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper, making just his second start since being sidelined since suffering a lower-body injury Dec 19, made 36 saves as the Coyotes rallied from a 2-1 third-period deficit.
Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson scored for the Canucks, who suffered their fourth consecutive defeat and are tied for the top wild-card spot with the Coyotes and Winnipeg Jets. Thatcher Demko stopped 36 of 39 shots.