Rangers send Devils to fifth straight loss; Islanders beat Sabres
Ryan Strome scored twice and the streaking New York Rangers beat the host New Jersey Devils 6-3 Saturday, sending New Jersey to its fifth straight loss and eighth in nine games.
Adam Fox, Kevin Rooney, Libor Hajek and Filip Chytil also scored as the Rangers won their season-high third straight and sixth in eight games.
“If you’re going to have a chance, you’ve got to string together wins,” coach David Quinn said. “You got to go on some sort of streak and some sort of run. We really hadn’t done that up to this point. We’re creeping up on the halfway point of the season so our guys realize what’s in front of us. They realize that with each passing day, you want to continue to gain momentum and continue to move forward.”
Alexandar Georgiev had 24 saves while filling in for the injured Igor Shesterkin, who sustained a groin injury in a 6-1 win over New Jersey on Thursday night.
P.K. Subban and Mikhail Maltsev scored in a 17-second first-period span for New Jersey. But things soon went downhill.
“If we’re going to play like that, we’re going to lose, we'll lose every night,” Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. “Our puck play wasn’t good, our attention to detail wasn’t good enough.
“We had some 50-50 battles that I believe that we could have won that we didn’t. The desperation I think along the walls to compete, no situation, was good enough.”
• Islanders 5, Sabres 2: Mathew Barzal and Scott Mayfield each had a goal and an assist as host New York beat Buffalo for its fourth straight victory.
Semyon Varlamov made 20 saves as the Islanders improved to 9-0-2 at Nassau Coliseum this season and 14-6-4 overall. Cal Clutterbuck, Brock Nelson and Anders Lee also scored.
New York beat Buffalo for the fifth straight time this season, outscoring the Islanders 19-7 in those five meetings.
The teams meet again Sunday for their third game in four days in the same venue.
Buffalo dropped its sixth straight game. Sam Reinhart and Jacob Bryson scored for the Sabres, and Carter Hutton made 24 saves.
• Penguins 4, Flyers 3: Jared McCann pounced on a rebound and knocked it past Bryan Elliott with less than 10 minutes to go to give host Pittsburgh the victory.
The Penguins took two of three from the Flyers during Philadelphia’s extended stay in Pittsburgh, with McCann providing the difference in the finale when Brandon Tanev’s shot smacked off Elliott’s pad and ended up on McCann’s stick. McCann fired it into the net, then went skates over skull after tripping over Elliott immediately after scoring his fifth of the season.
Zach Aston-Reese, Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin also scored for Pittsburgh. Tristan Jarry finished with 19 saves as the Penguins pulled back into a tie with the Flyers in the cramped East Division.
Travis Konecny, Kevin Hayes and Shayne Gostisbehere scored for the Flyers. Elliott made 23 stops but couldn't beat Pittsburgh for the second time in three days.