Penguins rout Rangers to take 3-1 series lead
Penguins 7, Rangers 2: Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists to become the sixth player in NHL history to reach 200 career playoff points and host Pittsburgh throttled New York on Monday night to take a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round series.
Jake Guentzel scored for the fourth consecutive game and Jeff Carter, Danton Heinen, Mark Friedman and Mike Matheson also beat Igor Shesterkin as the Penguins chased the Vezina Trophy favorite for the second time in three days to move within one game of advancing in the postseason for the first time since 2018. Shesterkin, who dazzled by making 118 saves in the first two games of the series at Madison Square Garden, sat out the third period after giving up six goals on 30 shots. Alexandar Georgiev allowed Evgeni Malkin's second goal of the playoffs in the third and could find himself the starter when the series heads back to New York for Game 5 on Wednesday.
Panthers 3, Capitals 2 (OT): Sam Reinhart tied it late in regulation, Carter Verhaeghe scored his second of the game in overtime and the visiting Presidents' Trophy-winning Florida beat Washington, tying the first-round series. Verhaeghe scored 4:57 into overtime to keep the NHL'S best regular-season team from getting pushed to the brink of elimination much earlier in the playoffs than expected.
It's a best-of-three series now with Game 5 Wednesday night at Florida. The Panthers were just over two minutes away from facing the prospect of getting knocked out at home. Then, with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Reinhart collected a loose puck after it bounced off Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway and beat Ilya Samsonov with 2:04 remaining in the third period.
Flames 4, Stars 1: Rasmus Andersson, Johnny Gaudreau and the Calgary Flames felt much more like themselves, and got even in their first-round playoff series with an onslaught of shots.
It helped that they also got to play a lot of 5-on-5 hockey, though Andersson did score Calgary's first power-play goal since early in the playoff opener, as the Flames beat the Dallas Stars 4-1 in Game 4 on Monday night.
Gaudreau converted a penalty shot with 12:13 left in the game to make it 2-0 Calgary, and later assisted on Elias Lindholm's third goal of the series as the Pacific Division champions regained home-ice advantage over the wild-card Stars. Mikael Backlund added an empty-netter in the final minute.
Avalanche 5, Predators 3: The Colorado Avalanche are happy they got a bit of a challenge before sweeping the Nashville Predators. They actually had to rally for the first time in the first round.
Valeri Nichushkin scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:58 left, and the Avalanche became the first team to advance to the second round Monday night beating the Predators 5-3 Monday night. The Avalanche now are in the Western Conference semifinals for a fourth straight season and second consecutive after sweeping their firstround opponent.