Pens surprise Jackets
Fleury, starting for Murray in goal, stifles Columbus
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 31 shots in a surprise start in place of injured Matt Murray and the Pittsburgh Penguins opened their Stanley Cup title defense with a 3-1 victory over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday night.
Murray was scheduled to get the nod in the playoff opener but was a late scratch after suffering a lower-body injury during warm-ups. Fleury withstood an early push by Columbus, and the Penguins responded by pulling away from the untested Blue Jackets.
Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh. Nick Bonino and Bryan Rust also scored, and Evgeni Malkin assisted on Rust and Kessel’s goals in his first game back after missing the final three weeks of the regular season because of an upper-body injury.
Matt Calvert scored for Columbus in the third period, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves.
Game 2 is Friday night in Pittsburgh.
Blues 2, Wild 1: Joel Edmundson scored for St. Louis at 17:48 of overtime, Jake Allen made a career-high 51 saves and the Blues sneaked into Minnesota to steal Game 1 of their firstround series.
Blues star Vladimir Tarasenko was quiet for most of the night until he drove into a crowd and threaded a pass through the Wild defense to Edmundson, who knocked in the second postseason goal of his career.
Bruins 2, Senators 1: Brad Marchand broke a tie with 2:33 left and Boston held on to beat Ottawa in Game 1. Marchand scored off the rebound of Patrice Bergeron’s shot. Game 2 is Saturday in Ottawa.
Frank Vatrano added a goal for Boston in his first NHL playoff game, and Tuukka Rask made 26 saves.
Rangers 2, Canadiens 0: Tanner Glass scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves to help New York beat host Montreal in Game 1. Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Friday night at Bell Centre. Michael Grabner added an empty-net goal with 1:10 left to play.
Islanders: The Islanders announced that Doug Weight, promoted from assistant coach to interim head coach in January, was a permanent hire.