Hartman breaks tie as Wild topple Lightning
Wild 4, Lightning 2: Ryan Hartman broke a 2-all tie midway through the third period, and the host Minnesota Wild beat the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday.
Hartman scored for the third straight game and has goals in five of the last six games to give him 12 on the season. Nick Bjugstad, Victor Rask and Marcus Foligno also scored for Minnesota, which has won three in a row and scored the most goals in the NHL since Nov. 2.
Corey Perry scored for the second time in three games for Tampa Bay. Alex Killorn added his first goal in 11 games, tying the game in the second period.
Kirill Kaprizov went to the net after collecting the puck near the side boards and passed across for Hartman, who spun and delivered a quick shot past Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy 9:15 into the third.
Vasilevskiy stopped 33 shots for the Lightning, which had won three games in a row and six of seven.
Minnesota’s Cam Talbot made 28 saves.
The Lightning beat Minnesota 5-4 in a shootout in Tampa Bay on Nov. 21 to snap a four-game losing streak to the Wild. Minnesota has points in 12 of its past 15 games against the Lightning and is 6-0-1 in the past seven.
Bjugstad opened the scoring midway through the first after picking up a loose puck in the neutral zone. He skated down the side and outraced Mathieu Joseph, turning the corner before sneaking the puck past Vasilevskiy’s left shoulder in a small window in the corner of the goal.
Perry answered 48 seconds later with a quick wrist shot from the faceoff circle past Talbot. But Rask, who had been a healthy scratch the previous two games, scored his third goal of the season before the end of the first after a pass from behind the net that missed its initial target.
Killorn, who had scored seven goals in his first nine games, scored for the first time since Nov. 1 with a wrist shot through traffic for the only goal of the second.
Capitals 4, Hurricanes 2: Dmitry Orlov scored on a power play with 2:55 remaining, and the Washington Capitals recovered after blowing a two-goal lead to beat the host Carolina Hurricanes.
Alex Ovechkin and Aliaksei Protas scored 59 seconds apart in the second period for the Capitals, who’ve won nine of their last 11 games (9-1-1). John Carlson added an empty-netter after Orlov’s goal put Washington ahead to stay.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nino Niederreiter scored in the third period for the Hurricanes. Niederreiter’s goal, his first since Oct. 28, tied the game at 2-2 with 6:28 remaining.
Ilya Samsonov stopped 30 shots for Washington, while Carolina’s Frederik Andersen made 21 saves. The teams combined for 28 shots without scoring until Ovechkin took a pass from Orlov and delivered the puck past Andersen for his 19th goal of the season. Ovechkin has 44 goals in 82 games against the Hurricanes.
Protas had some good fortune for his first career goal. His pass went off Carolina defenseman Tony DeAngelo’s skate, with the puck bouncing into the net. The 20-year-old Protas was playing in his 11th NHL game.
It was Carolina’s first home game in more than two weeks. The Hurricanes went 4-1-1 on a six-game road swing.
Devils 5, Flyers 2: Andreas Johnsson had two goals and two assists, Jesper Bratt had a goal and two assists and host New Jersey beat Philadelphia.
Dougie Hamilton had a goal and an assist, and Nathan Bastian also scored for New Jersey. Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves for New Jersey, which snapped a two-game losing streak and won at home for the first time since Nov. 11.
For the Flyers, Joel Farabee scored in his third straight game and Scott Laughton had a goal and an assist. Martin Jones made 30 saves, and Philadelphia dropped its sixth game in a row.
Sharks 2, Blackhawks 0: Timo Meier scored on a deflection and added an empty-net goal, James Reimer earned his 42nd career shutout, and visiting San Jose beat Chicago.
The Sharks won for the third time in four starts, all with Reimer in goal. He was only occasionally challenged en route to his first shutout in 22 months, stopping 29 shots.
The loss was the third in five games for Chicago, and dropped the Blackhawks to 6-3-0 since Derek King took over as head coach.