Carolina romps, opens 2-0 lead in series
Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov scored three times for the first postseason hat trick in franchise history as the Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers, 4-1, Monday for a 20 lead in the Stanley Cup qualifier series.
Svechnikov, 20, beat Henrik Lundqvist for the game’s first goal less than 5 minutes into the game in Toronto. He followed with a power-play one-timer early in the second off a feed from Sami Vatanen, then buried a third at 14:02 of the third off a feed from Sebastian Aho — who assisted on all three of Svechnikov’s goals.
“I think he’ll get a few more [hat tricks] before his time’s over in his career,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “He’s a gamer, too. this guy is one of those players in this break that worked on his game, he wanted to get better. I think you’re seeing that.”
“I just love that style, just hit hard,” Svechnikov said. “I think I’m playing a hard game. That’s I think why I’m scoring goals.”
Jordan Martinook also scored for the Hurricanes.
Other games
Lightning 3, Capitals 2: Nikita Kucherov scored the shootout winner in Toronto to lift Tampa Bay past Washington in the team’s first game of the round-robin that will determine the seedings for the top four teams in the Eastern Conference. The teams played 5 minutes of 3-on-3 overtime before going to a shootout because the games for seeding are following regular-season rules. Tampa Bay’s win puts it in a tie with Philadelphia at two points apiece in the Eastern Conference race, while Washington is third with one and Boston fourth with zero. Lightning captain Steven Stamkos missed the game as expected while recovering from a setback from core muscle surgery. The Capitals held out Norris Trophy finalist defenseman John Carlson as a precaution.
Golden Knights 5, Stars 3: Will Carrier scored the tiebreaker with 5:12 left and
Robin Lehner had 24 saves as Vegas rallied for four thirdperiod goals to beat Dallas in Western Conference roundrobin play in Edmonton, Alberta. Carrier backhanded a rebounded shot through the legs of Stars goaltender Ben Bishop after the Knights rallied from a 3-1 third-period deficit. Vegas scored three times in 5:02 to turn the game around and added an empty-netter with 21 seconds left. Chandler Stephenson, Mark Stone, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson also scored for the Knights. Vegas was without leading scorer and power forward Max Pacioretty, who had a minor injury in training camp. Stephenson took Pacioretty’s spot in the lineup.
Jets 3, Flames 2: Nikolaj Ehlers scored a third-period power-play goal to give Winnipeg a 3-2 win in Edmonton against Calgary that evened their best-of-five qualifyinground series at 1-1. Adam Lowry led the injury-ravaged Jets with a goal and an assist in Game 2 of the best-of-five series. Rookie Jansen Harkins also scored for Winnipeg and defenseman Jack Roslovic contributed a pair of assists.
Elsewhere
The league said there have been zero positive coronavirus test results since 24 teams entered quarantined bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton. The league announced it had administered more than 7,000 tests to players, coaches, staff and officials over the past week. Teams with 52-member traveling parties entered the bubbles July 26. There also were no positive test results the previous week when teams were still in their home cities for training camp.