'Canes beat Bruins in battle of best

Sebastian Aho scored a goal for the fourth straight game and the host Carolina Hurricanes beat the Boston Bruins 4-1 on Sunday in a matchup of the teams with the two best records in the NHL.

Paul Stastny scored on a second-period power play, Seth Jarvis posted a goal in the third, and Jordan Staal added a short-handed empty-netter as the Hurricanes won their fifth game in a row and extended their points streak to eight games (7-0-1).

Frederik Andersen, playing for the first time since he left Wednesday night's game in Dallas with an upper-body injury, made 24 saves.

Pavel Zacha score for the Bruins, who lead the NHL with 81 points but have lost three games in a row for the first time this season. Linus Ullmark stopped 32 shots.

Aho stole the puck at his defensive blue line took off on a breakaway for his 21st goal of the season with 9:08 left in the first. He has seven goals during his scoring streak.

After Carolina's four successful penalty kills through 30½ minutes, the Hurricanes scored on a power play as Stastny converted from in front of the net with 7:55 left in the second. It was his fourth.

Jarvis made a nifty move along the boards to gain control of the puck from Boston defenseman Brandon Carlo and sped into the zone on a breakaway, beating Ullmark at 1:56 of the third for his eighth of the season and first in seven games.

Boston struck back on Zacha's 10th at 3:22, but failed to reach two goals for just the third time this season.

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Morgan Rielly scored his first goal of the season for host Toronto in the Maple Leafs' victory over Washington.

Michael Bunting, with a goal and an assist, William Nylander, Pierre Engvall and Zach Aston-Reese provided the rest of the offense for Toronto. Ilya Samsonov made 23 saves in his sixth straight start — and seventh consecutive appearance.

Nicklas Backstrom scored the first goal for Washington. Darcy Kuemper allowed four goals on 20 shots before being replaced by Charlie Lindgren. The Capitals backup finished with six stops.

Leafs captain John Tavares, who played the 1,000th regular-season game of his NHL career, was honored by the team with a ceremony before a rare 5 p.m. puck drop.

Down 1-0 after the first period, Toronto got even 1:29 of the second when Bunting slid his 15th goal of the season past Kuemper on a power play.

Rielly then snapped his first of the campaign — the defenseman looked skyward in relief as he celebrated — at exactly seven minutes to make it 2-1.