Zacha scores twice, Bruins beat Leafs

Pavel Zacha scored twice in the third period as the Boston Bruins held off the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 on Wednesday night.

Derek Forbort and Brandon Carlo both had goals in the second period as Boston snapped a threegame winless skid. A.J. Greer also scored in the final period and Linus Ullmark made 33 saves.

Mitchell Marner scored on the power play, his 19th goal of the season, for Toronto. Calle Jarnkrok had a goal in the third to keep the Maple Leafs in the game. Ilya Samsonov stopped 24 shots in his eighth consecutive game in net for Toronto.

Samsonov was 5-1-1 over his last seven starts with a .925 save percentage and 2.24 goals-against average.

Forbort snapped home a short-handed goal 6:57 into the second.

Marner replied on the power play 2:28 later. After a long leading pass off the boards from Samsonov, Marner skated through the left faceoff circle and snapped a shot past Ullmark to tie it at 1.

Carlo reestablished Boston’s one-goal lead a little over three minutes later, taking a pass from Hampus Lindholm and deflecting it past Samsonov from a wide angle.

Stefan Noesen had a goal and an assist to help lead the Carolina Hurricanes to a win over the Buffalo Sabres.

Sebastian Aho, Brent Burns, Derek Stepan and Jordan Martinook also scored for the Hurricanes, who have won seven games in a row. Antti Raanta made 29 saves.

Alex Tuch scored the lone goal for Buffalo. Ukko-pekka Luukkonen made 29 saves.

The Hurricanes completely dominated the Sabres out of the gates, taking control of the game and jumping out to an early 3-0 lead.

Aho opened the scoring on the power play 2:35 into the game, finishing a pass through the crease from Teuvo Teravainen for a tap-in. Aho extended his hot streak and has goals in six consecutive games.

Noesen had a tap-in of his own midway through the first period on a feed from Martin Necas.

Burns made it 3-0 with 7:13 left in the first, shooting at an open net following a terrific setup by Jesperi Kotkaniemi.

Tuch got the Sabres on the board with 5:15 left in the first on a wrist shot from the right circle. It was his 24th goal of the season.

Things went from bad to worse late in the second period for Buffalo. Sabres leading scorer Tage Thompson left the game with an upper-body injury and did not return. Thompson had been trying to play through injury in recent days and missed practice on Monday. Thompson has 34 goals and 68 points in 50 games. The injury puts his status for this weekend’s NHL All-star Game in jeopardy.