Tavares gives Weight win in Islanders debut
Rampant Capitals score seven in rout of Blues
>> NEW YORK: John Tavares narrowly missed out on his second hat-trick in a week, Thomas Greiss got his second straight shut-out and the New York Islanders beat the Dallas Stars 3-0 on Thursday night in their first game since firing longtime coach Jack Capuano.
New York canned Capuano in the middle of his seventh season on Tuesday, replacing him on an interim basis with Doug Weight.
Tavares has seven goals in four games after scoring twice and then having an empty-net shot just deflected wide late in the third period. He had three goals last Friday at Florida.
Greiss stopped 23 shots after making 32 saves in a 4-0 win over Boston on Monday. Calvin de Haan added an empty-net goal on a coastto-coast shot with four seconds left.
Kari Lehtonen made 33 saves for Dallas, which were coming off a 7-6 victory over the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.
In Columbus, Kyle Turris and Ryan Dzingel scored goals and Mike Condon made 42 saves to lead the Ottawa Senators past the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-0.
Condon was always where he needed to be for the Senators, who have won four of their last five and handed Columbus their fifth loss in the last eight games.
The Blue Jackets had trouble establishing passing lanes, and when they got the open looks, shot the puck right at Condon or off target. Eleven Columbus players took multiple shots with nothing to show for it.
Sergei Bobrovsky had 26 saves for the Blue Jackets, who were shut out for the first time since a 5-0 loss at Washington on Jan 5 to end a franchise-record 16-game winning streak.
In St Louis, Andre Burakovsky, TJ Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov each had a goal and an assist to lead the Washington Capitals over the St Louis Blues 7-3.
Jay Beagle, Brett Connolly, Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams also scored, and Alex Ovechkin and Daniel Winnik each had two assists to help Washington earn at least a point in their 12th straight game (10-0-2) for an NHL-best 66 points.
Braden Holtby bounced back from his roughest outing of the season with 22 saves. Holtby was pulled after giving up a season-high five goals on 26 shots in an 8-7 overtime loss at Pittsburgh on Monday. He improved to 22-8-4 and 5-0 lifetime against St Louis.
Alexander Steen scored twice and Jaden Schwartz had a goal and two assists for St Louis.
In Toronto, Michael Grabner scored two goals against his former team, helping the New York Rangers snap a three-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Pavel Buchnevich, Brady Skjei and JT Miller added goals for New York, and Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves following a series of rough outings.
Tyler Bozak and Zach Hyman scored for Toronto, which had a three-game winning streak stopped. The Maple Leafs had earned 21 of a possible 26 points in their previous 13 games (10-2-1). Frederik Andersen gave up four goals on 40 shots.
In St Paul, Nino Niederreiter had two power-play goals and an assist, including the go-ahead score for the Minnesota Wild with 7:06 minutes remaining in a 4-3 victory over Arizona after the Coyotes came back from a two-goal deficit.
With Shane Doan in the penalty box for hooking, Niederreiter knocked in a nifty redirect of Mikael Granlund’s slap shot for the winner. Devan Dubnyk stopped 20 shots for the Wild, who are 18-2-2 in their last 22 games.
In Calgary, Ryan Ellis had his first career two-goal game and the Nashville Predators held off a late rally to beat the Calgary Flames 4-3.
James Neal scored his teamleading 15th goal, and Filip Forsberg added the other score for Nashville, which moved past idle Los Angeles into the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.