Fleury, Golden Knights beat Lightning
TAMPA, FLA. » Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves, David Perron had a goal and an assist, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 Thursday night in a matchup of conference leaders.
James Neal, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson also scored for the Golden Knights, who swept the two-game season series with the NHL-leading Lightning.
Tampa Bay, coming off its bye week, got a goal from Ondrej Palat, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots. Vasilevskiy, an All-Star this season, has allowed 19 goals over his last four games.
Fleury made a number of impressive stops, including a left-circle shot by Steven Stamkos and inclose chance from Nikita Kucherov during the second period. The goalie, who spent most of career with Pittsburgh, is 19-11-4 against the Lightning.
Vegas is 19-1-0 when scoring first, with the lone loss coming Oct. 30 to the New York Islanders. RANGERS 4, SABRES 3 » Pavel Buchnevich scored the go-ahead goal late in the third period, lifting New York over Buffalo.
Rick Nash scored twice for the second straight game and Henrik Lundqvist made 34 saves for the Rangers, who won their second straight after three consecutive losses. BLUE JACKETS 2, STARS 1 » Artemi Panarin scored in the second round of a shootout, and Columbus beat Dallas.
Joonas Korpisalo had 35 saves for Columbus (26-18-3), which returned from its five-day break after losing both ends of a back-toback last week. Jordan Schroeder scored his first goal of the season in the first period. BRUINS 5, ISLANDERS 2» Patrice Bergeron scored three goals to lead Boston to a victory over New York, giving the Bruins at least a point for the 15th consecutive game.
Brad Marchand had a goal and two assists as Boston improved to 11-0-4 since its last regulation loss Dec. 14 against Washington — its best stretch since going 150-1 from March 2-30, 2014. Ryan Spooner had a goal and an assist, and Anton Khudobin stopped 22 shots. DEVILS 4, CAPITALS 3 » Taylor Hall scored on a breakaway 34 seconds into overtime and New Jersey beat Washington.
Sami Vatanen collected his third assist of the game on the winning goal, a shot over the shoulder of goaltender Braden Holtby.