Rangers stay hot, beat Maple Leafs
TORONTO — Mika Zibanejad scored the shootout winner as the New York Rangers continued a strong February with a 2-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.
Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves and J.T. Miller scored the game-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 with 80 points.
Connor Brown scored for Toronto, which fell to 1-7 in shootouts this season. Frederik Andersen had a stellar performance in defeat with 37 saves.
The Leafs hold the third playoff spot in the Atlantic Division (68 points), two points back of Ottawa (70) and four back of Montreal.
ISLANDERS 3, CANADIENS 0: In Montreal, rookie Anthony Beauvillier scored in the first period and Thomas Greiss made 24 saves as New York beat Montreal.
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. New York has 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 shutout of the season.
Carey Price finished with 21 saves as the Canadiens lost in coach Claude Julien’s 1,000th NHL game. Montreal is 1-2-0 since Julien replaced Michel Therrien last week.
BLACKHAWKS 6, COYOTES 3: In Chicago, Patrick Kane scored three goals for his third career hat trick to lead Chicago past Arizona for its third straight win and eighth in nine games.
Kane has 23 goals to lead Chicago, which closed within three points behind firstplace Minnesota in the Central Division and Western Conference.
Rookies Nick Schmaltz and Ryan Hartman each had a goal and assist.
FLAMES 3, LIGHTNING 2: In Tampa, Fla., Sean Monahan scored his 100th NHL goal and Brian Elliott made 23 saves as Calgary beat Tampa Bay.
Dougie Hamilton had a goal and two assists, and Mikael Backlund also scored to help the Flames 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.
PREDATORS 4, AVALACHE 2: Nashville, Tenn., Filip Forsberg scored his second straight hat trick as Nashville beat Colorado to sweep the season series between the Central Division teams.
Forsberg, who 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 an empty-net goal with 36.5 seconds left.
BRUINS 4, KINGS 1: In Los Angeles, David Pastrnak scored his 26th goal to give Boston a 2-1 lead in the second period and Anton Khudobin made 27 saves for the Bruins against LA. The Bruins added two empty-net goals in the final 1:02.