Fleury, Wild on edge of elimination
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Vladimir Tarasenko scored three goals on former Golden Knights goaltender Marc-andre Fleury in the third period to break open a tie game and series, and the St. Louis Blues pushed the Minnesota Wild to the edge of elimination with a 5-2 victory in Game 5 on Tuesday night.
Ryan O’reilly scored for the fourth time in the series and Brandon Saad got the tying goal late in the second period as the Blues upstaged a stellar performance by Wild star Kirill Kaprizov.
Jordan Binnington made 30 saves for his second straight win after Ville Husso was benched, again bettering Wild goalie Fleury, who stopped 27 shots
Kaprizov brought the building to life on yet another late-night start — puck drop was at 8:50 p.m. local time — by scoring twice on Minnesota’s previously sluggish power play in the first period. Kaprizov has an Nhl-leading seven goals in the playoffs, already a Wild record for a series.
The Wild are 4 for 19 on the power play, and Kaprizov has three of the goals.
■ Maple Leafs 4, Lightning 3: At Toronto, Auston Matthews scored the tiebreaking goal with 6:06 left in the third period and the Toronto Maple Leafs rallied from an early two-goal deficit to take a 3-2 lead in the first-round playoff series. William Nylander added a goal and two assists for Toronto. Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Ryan Mcdonagh scored, Nikita Kucherov had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves for Tampa Bay.
■ Hurricanes 5, Bruins 1: At Raleigh, N.C., Rookie Seth Jarvis scored twice to back Antti Raanta, who finished with 34 saves to help the Carolina take a 3-2 lead in the first-round playoff series. Connor Clifton scored for Boston, while Jeremy Swayman had 33 saves.
■ Kings 5, Oilers 4: At Edmonton, Alberta, Adrian Kempe scored 1:12 into overtime to push Los Angeles within one win of the second round.