Panthers stay alive by beating Islanders
Brian Boyle and the Florida Panthers turned the tables on the New York Islanders by playing with more discipline and patience to avoid being swept from the playoffs.
Boyle and Mike Hoffman scored 2:47 apart, and the Panthers took advantage of several miscues in beating the Islanders 3-2 in Game 3 of their best-of-five preliminary round playoff series Wednesday at Toronto.
Erik Haula also scored and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 20 shots for Florida. The 10th-seeded Panthers trail the best-of-five series 2-1 with Game 4 on Friday.
Coyotes 4, Predators 1: Conor Garland and Taylor Hall each scored in the third period and 11th-seeded Arizona, up 2-1, can eliminate sixth-seeded Nashville in Game 4 on Friday in this best-of-five West qualifier.
Christian Dvorak scored on Arizona’s first shot of the game, and the Coyotes scored three times in the third.
Lightning 3, Bruins 2: Tyler Johnson scored the tiebreaking goal with 87 seconds left to lead Tampa Bay over Boston and send the Bruins to their second straight loss in the playoff seeding round. Andrei
Vasilevskiy stopped 25 shots for the Lightning, who improved to 2-0 in the threegame round-robin.
Canadiens 4, Penguins 3: Montreal rallied from a 3-1 deficit to take a 2-1 lead in their East qualifier. The Canadiens scored two quick second-period goals to enter the intermission 3-3. Jeff Petry netted the winner.
Avalanche 4, Stars 0: Rookie defenseman Cale Makar connected on an early power-play goal and Pavel Francouz recorded a shutout in his postseason debut for Colorado in a West round-robin game.
Blackhawks 4, Oilers 3: Matthew Highmore and Jonathan Toews scored in the third period as the Blackhawks rallied.