Upstart Golden Knights on brink of sweep
James Neal scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:37 to play, and the Vegas Golden Knights rallied from a third-period deficit to move to the brink of the expansion franchise’s first playoff series victory with a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night.
Cody Eakin tied it with 13:50 left, and William Karlsson scored 21 seconds after Neal’s goal in a thirdperiod flurry for the Golden Knights, whose storybook debut season just keeps getting more exciting and more outlandish.
After opening their first postseason series with two home wins, the hockey upstarts from the desert took a 3-0 series lead by coolly winning their first road playoff game in front of an angry sellout crowd at Staples Center, where two recent Stanley Cup banners hang above the ice.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 37 saves for the Golden Knights, who became the first team to take a 3-0 series lead in this postseason.
Vegas will go for a sweep in Game 4 on Tuesday night in Los Angeles and would face the winner of the Sharks/Ducks series.
Alex Iafallo scored his first career playoff goal in the first period for the Kings, who haven’t won a playoff game at Staples Center since they last raised the Stanley Cup in June 2014.
PENGUINS 5, FLYERS 1 >> Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists and Matt Murray stopped 26 shots to help Pittsburgh silence a raucous Philadelphia crowd and take a 2-1 lead in the firstround playoff series.
Two of the so-called fiercest rivals in the NHL have provided three lopsided games: Pittsburgh’s 7-0 win in Game 1 and Philadelphia’s 5-1 victory in Game 2 could about qualify as nailbitters in this series.
Crosby scored his fourth goal of the series in the first period, and Derick Brassard, Evgeni Malkin and Brian Dumoulin scored in the second to make it 4-0. Malkin and Dumoulin scored 5 seconds apart.
Brian Elliott, yanked in Game 1, had another rough outing and might need to borrow fellow Wells Fargo Center tenant Joel Embiid’s black mask to have a better look at the puck.
The Flyers haven’t won a playoff series since 2012 and pulled out all the theatrical stops in their return to the postseason after a one-year absence. Flyers fans even stuck photos of Crosby inside the urinals throughout the arena.
BLUE JACKETS 5, CAPITALS
4, OT >> Sergei Bobrovsky made 54 saves, Matt Calvert scored the winner 12:22 into overtime and Columbus overcame two goals from Alex Ovechkin in Washington to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.
Calvert’s goal held up after the NHL situation room reviewed the play for a possible offside. Calvert was just onside when Josh Anderson brought the puck into the zone.
Columbus heads home for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday two victories away from advancing to the second round for the first time in franchise history thanks in large part to the play of Bobrovsky.
The two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender has now stopped 81 of 88 shots through two games.
Cam Atkinson scored twice for the Blue Jackets.
WILD 6, JETS 2 >> Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise scored power-play goals in the first period for the spark Minnesota was missing on the road, and the host Wild used a four-goal second period to roar back in the first-round playoff series.
The Wild will try to tie the best-of-7 series 2-2 in Game 4 at home Tuesday night.
Jordan Greenway scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds after Eric Staal sent a wrist shot past a struggling Connor Hellebuyck, who was pulled for Steve Mason at the second intermission.