Flyers can’t gain ground

Michael McLeod, Kyle Palmieri, Yegor Sharangovich and Travis Zajac scored and the New Jersey Devils beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 on Tuesday night.

The top four teams in the East Division make the playoffs and the Flyers entered a pivotal stretch just two points behind Boston for the final spot. Starting with the Devils, the Flyers played five straight games against teams behind them in the standings. Trying to make a push at jumping back into the playoff race, the Flyers pinned yet another loss on shaky defense and goalie Carter Hart.

The Flyers dropped their third straight.

Joel Farabee scored his 14th goal of the season. Sean Couturier added two goals late in the third to make it 4-3. The Flyers pulled Hart in the final minute and made a mad rush a tie game but could not force OT.

Blackhawks 3, Panthers 2 — Kevin Lankinen made 33 saves, Patrick Kane had two assists and Chicago stopped a four-game slide by holding off Florida.

Dominik Kubalik, Pius Suter and Carl Soderberg scored for Chicago in the opener of a six-game homestand.

Anton Stralman and Alex Wennberg scored for the Panthers. Chris Driedger made 29 stops.

Predators 2, Red Wings 0 — Juuse Saros made 31 saves for his first shutout of the season and Nashville beat Detroit.

Mikael Granlund and Mathieu Olivier scored for Nashville, which has won four of its last five.

Lightning 2, Stars 1 — Steven Stamkos and Yanni Gourde scored in the second period and Andrei Vasilevskiy recorded his franchise-record 12th straight win as the Tampa Bay beat Dallas.