Caps cool off Budaj, Kings
As his Capitals teammates chased shutout king Peter Budaj, backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer stopped all 38 shots he faced to beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-0, yesterday in Washington.
The Capitals snapped the Kings’ winning streak at five and Budaj’s shutout streak at 147:21. Washington has won three consecutive games and leads the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference by seven points.
Lars Eller, Marcus Johansson, Brett Connolly, T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams scored for the Capitals, who are also five points up on the Minnesota Wild in the Presidents’ Trophy race. Despite being outshot 38-20, they were opportunistic on offense and leaned on Grubauer to stymie the Kings on the way to his third shutout of the season.
Budaj, who leads the NHL with seven shutouts, was pulled after allowing four goals on 15 shots in two periods. He stopped all 39 he faced in his previous two starts.
The Kings went back to Budaj for back-to-back afternoon starts after he won in overtime Saturday in Philadelphia.
Oilers 1, Canadiens 0 — Leon Draisaitl scored the only goal in a shootout, and visiting Edmonton stopped a three-game slide with a win over Montreal.
Cam Talbot had 22 saves as Edmonton salvaged the finale of a three-game trip that included only one regulation goal for the Oilers.
The Canadiens dropped to 1-3-1 in their last five games. The Atlantic Division leaders were coming off a 3-2 loss to Washington on Saturday.
Edmonton star Connor McDavid, playing in his 100th NHL game, had a breakaway in overtime, but he was denied by Al Montoya. Talbot also turned away a big drive for Shea Weber at the other end. Montoya finished with 32 saves. Rangers 4, Flames 3 — Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast scored 3:12 apart in the middle of the third period and host New York held off Calgary.
Henrik Lundqvist stopped 29 shots as the Rangers won for the fifth time in seven games overall and improved to 5-0-1 in their last six against Calgary. The Flames had won three in a row. The Rangers outlasted Calgary in a furious third period that began with the score tied at 1. It also included a fight between Flames veteran Kris Versteeg and Pavel Buchnevich — Versteeg’s jersey got pulled off in the brawl and he was ejected because it wasn’t properly tied down.
Versteeg waved at jeering fans in Madison Square Garden as he skated off.
Elsewhere in the NHL — St. Louis Blues forward Robby Fabbri will miss the rest of the season because of a left knee injury.
The team announced yesterday that Fabbri is out with an ACL injury and will be back for 2017-18 training camp.