Lightning’s Vasilevskiy ends shutout drought, beats Avs

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves to stop an 84-game regularseason shutout drought, Branon Hagel had two goals and an assist, and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Colorado Avalanche 5-0 on Thursday night.

This was the first meeting between the teams since Colorado ended Tampa Bay’s two-year run as NHL champs with a series win in last season’s Stanley Cup Final.

Vasilevskiy made a nifty glove save on Matt Nieto’s early second-period breakaway shot en route to his 29th career shutout and first since blanking Seattle on Nov. 26, 2021.

Corey Perry, Brayden Point and Mikhail Sergachev also scored for the Lightning, who had lost two in row. Nikita Kucherov got his 56th assist on Point’s goal to break his own record (2018-19) with a point in his 17th consecutive home game. Alex Killorn had three assists.

Dougie Hamilton scored two power-play goals and New Jersey continued to roll despite playing without Jack Hughes for the first time this season, beating Seattle.

Mackenzie Blackwood, making only his fifth start since Dec. 23, made 34 saves as New Jersey improved to 10-1-1 in its last 12 games. Ondrej Palat had the primary assist on Hamilton’s goals and defenseman John Marino scored into an empty net.

Defenseman Adam Larsson scored for Seattle and Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves in losing to New Jersey for the first time in six career decisions.

Elias Pettersson scored twice in the third period and Vancouver snapped a two-game skid.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Brock Boesser, Nils Aman and Anthony Beauvillier also scored for the Canucks.

Collin Delia made 24 saves in the third game of a four-game trip to begin the second half of the season. J.T. Miller and Quinn Hughes each had two assists.

Jack Eichel had a goal and an assist for Vegas to hasten a mid-game meltdown by Minnesota, and the Golden Knights cruised past the sputtering Wild.

Nicolas Roy, Alex Pietrangelo, Paul Cotter and Reilly Smith also scored against former Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who had little help in front of him and lost his cool after giving up Eichel’s goal that was the fourth of the second period for the visitors.

Filip Zadina made a successful return to Detroit’s lineup, scoring the goahead goal at 5:51 of the third period to lift the Red Wings over Calgary.

Zadina had not played since Nov. 5 because of a broken right leg. He passed to Oskar Sundqvist, got the puck right back and snapped it into the open right side of the net past Dan Vladar for his first goal of the season.

Calgary’s Blake Coleman scored the first goal of the game at 18:54 of the second period.

James van Riemsdyk and Morgan Frost scored in the shootout, and Carter Hart made 34 saves for Philadelphia.

Kevin Hayes scored in regulation for the Flyers.

Evander Kane scored and Connor McDavid had an assist for Edmonton, which lost for just the second time in 10 games. Stuart Skinner stopped 35 shots.

Sam Reinhart and Eric Staal each scored a pair of goals and Florida beat San Jose for its season-high third straight win.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves in the win.

Alexander Bararanov scored for the Sharks. Kaapo Kahkonen made 34 saves in the loss.