Capitals collect third win in a row

Anthony Mantha scored twice, and Alex Ovechkin and Connor Sheary each had a goal and an assist as the Washington Capitals beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 7-2 Thursday night for their third straight win.

Martin Fehervary, Connor McMichael and Evgeny Kuznetsov also scored, and Nikolas Backstrom added two assists as Washington improved to 6-0-1 in its last seven games. Vitek Vanecek stopped 39 shots for the visiting Capitals, who pulled one point behind Boston for the top wild card in the Eastern Conference and increased their lead over Columbus to 13 points for the second wild card.

Kyle Palmieri scored the tiebreaking goal with less than three minutes left in the third period and Ilya Sorokin made 29 saves as the Islanders beat the rival Rangers.

Anders Lee also scored for the Islanders, who are 4-0-1 in their last five games.

Bryan Rust scored the deciding goal in a shootout and goalie Tristan Jarry picked up his 30th victory in Pittsburgh's win at St. Louis.

Connor McDavid, Kailer Yamamoto and Tyson Barrie each had a goal and an assist and Edmonton won its fourth in a row, beating visiting Buffalo.

Erik Kallgren made 35 saves and Toronto beat visiting Carolina for the rookie goalie's second straight victory. Mitch Marner, Ilya Mikheyev and Ondrej Kase scored for Toronto. The Maple Leafs were again without NHL goals leader Auston Matthews as he served the second of a two-game suspension.

John Klingberg scored late in regulation and overtime to give Dallas the victory at Montreal.

Klingberg tied it with 4:46 left in regulation and ended it with 10 seconds to go in the five-minute overtime.

Kevin Hayes scored a tying goal late in the third period, then assisted Joel Farabee's game-winner with 1:19 remaining to lead Philadelphia over Nashville after the Flyers honored captain Claude Giroux for playing in his 1,000th career regular-season game.