Hall scores again as Bruins blank Isles
Taylor Hall scored his second goal in two nights, Jeremy Swayman stopped 25 shots and the Boston Bruins beat the Islanders 3-0 on Friday, their second win over New York in two nights.
David Pastrnak added his 17th goal of the season and Curtis Lazar had a late empty-netter as Boston put more distance between itself and the idle New York Rangers for the East Division’s final playoff spot.
Ilya Sorokin had 21 saves for the Islanders, who have lost three of four.
Coming off a 4-1 win on Thursday night, the Bruins were again solid defensively, turning back all five of New York’s power play chances.
Boston took a 2-0 lead 47 seconds into the second period when Hall tipped in his fourth goal of the season off a feed from David Krejci.
Hall has brought a spark to Boston’s lineup since the 2017-18 Hart Trophy winner came over from Buffalo at the trade deadline. He scored his first goal as a Bruin Thursday night.
Boston scored the game’s first goal with just 2.4 seconds remaining in the first.
Defender Mike Reilly, another of Boston’s trade-deadline pickups, took a pass from Patrice Bergeron and slipped it between Kyle Palmieri and Scott Mayfield to Pastrnak as he waited at the top of the slot. Pastrnak controlled it and placed his snap shot just under the crossbar.
The teams meet one final time this season May 10 in Boston.
CANADIENS 2, FLAMES 1 » Tyler Toffoli scored two goals,
including the winner in the third period, to lift Montreal to a victory over Calgary that snapped the Flames’ threegame winning streak.
Toffoli was credited with the go-ahead goal at 15:45 of the third after he deflected in a pass from Joel Armia over the glove of Jacob Markstrom.
Jake Allen made 13 of his 28 saves in the first period for the Canadiens, who had lost three of their previous four games — including a 4-1 loss to the Flames on Wednesday night.
Elias Lindholm scored the lone goal for the Flames, who had pulled within four points of the Canadiens for the fourth and final playoff spot in the North Division. The teams face each other three more times this month in Calgary.
With the game still scoreless in the second period, Allen made a spectacular diving stick save by stretching across an empty net to just barely deflect a pointblank shot from Lindholm.
Toffoli put the Canadiens on the scoreboard first with his 20th of the season at 9:32 of the second off a great feed from Nick Suzuki who circled around the net to find him. Toffoli finished with a wrist shot past Markstrom to reach 20 goals in consecutive seasons.
Meanwhile, Calgary also hit two posts in the period.
Lindholm tied it with his 11th goal of the season at 6:30 of the third with a wild swing-around backhand shot that glanced off defenseman Ben Chiarot’s skate and in. Chiarot was playing his first game back after missing 15 with a broken hand.