Bruins humiliate Rangers to the boos of home crowd
NEW YORK: Riley Nash and Zdeno Chara scored first-period goals and Patrice Bergeron added two in the second to help the surging Boston Bruins swamp the New York Rangers 6-1 on Wednesday night.
The Bruins won for the 18th time in their last 23 games, getting 21 saves from backup netminder Anton Khudobin. The Bruins (33-11-8) are just a point behind Atlantic Division-leading Tampa Bay.
Tim Schaller’s goal that made it 4-1 at 7:25 of the second period chased Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and brought boos from the crowd at Madison Square Garden.
Sean Kuraly also scored for Boston. Rick Nash scored for New York.
In Toronto, James van Riemsdyk scored in regulation and again in the seventh round of a shoot-out in Toronto’s 3-2 victory over Nashville.
Kasperi Kapanen also scored in regulation to help the Maple Leafs win for the sixth time in seven games. Frederik Andersen made 44 saves to improve to 7-1-0 against Nashville.
Colton Sissons and Viktor Arvidsson scored for the Predators, and Pekka Rinne stopped 30 shots.
In Los Angeles, Paul LaDue scored the tie-breaking goal on a power play with 5:27 minutes remaining, and Los Angeles pulled away late to beat Edmonton 5-2.
Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves for his fourth straight win, although his shutout streak ended at 193:58 — the second-longest in Los Angeles history behind Jonathan Quick’s mark of 202:11 in October 2011. Adrian Kempe and Kyle Clifford also scored for the Kings, who are 5-2-0 after losing six in a row.
Connor McDavid scored for the third straight game and Leon Draisaitl had a power-play goal for the Oilers, who failed to earn a point for the second time in their past eight games (5-2-1). Cam Talbot made 23 saves.
LaDue put the Kings back in front 3-2 with his second NHL goal. Alex Iafallo and Anze Kopitar added empty-netters.