NHL ROUNDUP

Wednesday’s game

Maple Leafs 7, Capitals 3: Auston Matthews scored his NHL-leading 56th and 57th goals of the season and matched his career high with five points, leading the visiting Leafs as Alex Ovechkin moving closer to Wayne Gretzky.

Ovechkin scored goals 844 and 845 of his career to move 50 back of breaking Gretzky’s record that long seemed unapproachable. He’s now at 23 this season after scoring 15 goals since Jan. 22 to make up for just eight in his first 43 games.

Matthews scoring twice – with a third, would-be hat trick goal getting called back on a coach’s challenge for offside – put him eight away from tying Ovechkin’s career-best season of 65 from 2007-08, the highest since the league’s salary cap era began in 2005.

Tuesday’s late games

Predators 8, Sharks 2: Michael McCarron scored two goals, Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg each had a goal and two assists and host Nashville extended the team’s point streak to a franchise record-tying 15 games.

Avalanche 4, Blues 3: Mikko Rantanen scored three goals to lead surging, visiting Colorado. Rantanen scored a goal in each period for his seventh career hat trick and first since April 6, 2023, at San Jose. He had 37 goals this season.

Oilers 3, Canadiens 2 (OT): Connor McDavid scored and set up Leon Draisaitl’s game-winning power-play goal at 3:18 of overtime to lead host Edmonton, who won for the eighth times in 11 games (8-1-2). Calvin Pickard had 23 saves.

Wild 4, Ducks 0: Filip Gustavsson recorded his third shutout this season, Kirill Kaprizov extended his point streak to eight games with the 150th goal of his NHL career and host Minnesota beat Anaheim for the second time in six days. Gustavsson stopped 27 shots for his sixth career shutout.