PANTHERS STUN CAPS IN OT
Sam Reinhart tied it late in regulation, Carter Verhaeghe scored his second of the game in overtime and the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Florida Panthers beat the Washington Capitals 3-2 in Game 4 Monday night, tying the first-round series.
Verhaeghe scored 4:57 into overtime to keep the NHL’s best regular-season team from getting pushed to the brink of elimination much earlier in the playoffs than expected. It’s a best-ofthree series now with Game 5 Wednesday night at Florida.
“It’s hard out there — everyone’s got to play a little harder,” said Verhaeghe, who played eight games on the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2020 Cup run in the bubble. “We’re competing for the Cup. Nothing’s easy. Nothing’s
given to you.”
The Panthers were just over two minutes away from facing the prospect of getting knocked out at home. Then, with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Reinhart collected a loose puck after it bounced off Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway and beat Ilya Samsonov with 2:04 remaining in the third period.
“Those are the kind of situations you want to be in as a hockey player,” Reinhart said. “It’s a game that could really go either way at the end of it, and we stuck with it and we’re happy with the result.”
Penguins 7, Rangers 2: Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists to become the sixth player in NHL history to reach 200 career playoff points and Pittsburgh routed New York at home to take a 3-1 lead in the firstround series.
Jake Guentzel scored for the fourth consecutive game and Jeff Carter, Danton Heinen, Mark Friedman and Mike Matheson also beat Igor Shesterkin as the Penguins chased the Vezina Trophy favorite for the second time in three days to move within one game of advancing in the postseason for the first time since 2018. Louis Domingue made 22 saves to win his third game of the series.
Game 5 is Wednesday. Flames 4, Stars 1: Rasmus Andersson scored Calgary’s first power-play goal since early in the playoff opener, Jacob Markstrom had 34 saves and the Flames beat host Dallas in Game 4 to even their first-round series. Johnny Gaudreau converted a penalty shot with 12:13 left to make it 2-0 Calgary. He later assisted on Elias Lindholm’s third goal of the series as the Pacific Division champions regained homeice advantage over the wildcard Stars. Game 5 is Wednesday night in Calgary.
Avalanche 5, Predators 3: Valeri Nichushkin scored the game-winning goal with 7:58 left, and visiting Colorado became the first team to advance to the second round by finishing a sweep of Nashville.
Notable
The New York Islanders fired coach Barry Trotz after missing the playoffs in his fourth season with the team. General Manager Lou Lamoriello made the surprising announcement more than a week after the regular season ended.