Panthers rally late, hold on to top Sabres
Panthers 4, Sabres 3: Sam Bennett scored with 37.3 seconds left to lift host Florida over Buffalo on Friday night.
Sam Reinhart and Claude Giroux each had a goal and an assist, and Patric Hornqvist also scored for the Panthers. Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves.
Jeff Skinner, Mark Pysyk and Victor Olofsson scored for the Sabres, and Dustin Tokarski stopped 39 shots.
Aleksander Barkov passed from the left circle to Bennett in front and he poked the puck in the net to cap a comeback from a 3-1 deficit. The Panthers won their 30th home game of the season, extending the franchise record, and got their franchise-record 50th win of season.
Hornqvist trimmed the score to 3-2 when he banked the puck from behind the net off Tokarski’s back and in with 10:30 left in the second. Then Reinhart tied the score at 3 on his power-play goal with 5:40 left in the period.
The Sabres scored three goals on their first nine shots.
Islanders 2, Hurricanes 1: Kyle Palmieri scored with 14.1 seconds remaining in a wild final minute to lift visiting New York over Carolina.
Ilya Sorokin needed only 19 saves to pick up the victory, though he was less than a minute away from matching a franchise record for shutouts in a season.
But Vincent Trocheck’s goal with 56.8 seconds to play tied it for Carolina.
Still, the Islanders won for the fifth time in their last six games – thanks to Palmieri’s clutch goal.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau also scored for New York, and Palmieri had an assist on that goal.
Bruins 2, Lightning 1 (OT): Charlie Coyle scored 3:37 into overtime to give visiting Boston a victory over Tampa Bay.
Coyle picked up a loose puck to the right of Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, came out in front and scored on
a quick wrist shot.
Jake DeBrusk scored the other goal for Boston, which got 28 saves from Linus Ullmark. The Bruins improved to 8-3 in their last 11 games.
Blues 4, Wild 3 (OT): Robert Thomas scored at 1:27 of overtime to give host St. Louis a victory over Minnesota.
Thomas took a pass from Vladimir Tarasenko and scored on a slap shot from the left faceoff circle.
The Blues overcame a 3-1 deficit to leapfrog Minnesota in the Central Division standings in the battle for home ice in the first round of the playoffs.
Brayden Schenn, Pavel Buchnevich and Justin Faulk also scored for St. Louis, and Ville Husso made 35 saves.