Penguins hand Sabres 16th straight loss with 4-0 victory
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Jared McCann had two power-play goals, Casey DeSmith made 36 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins extended Buffalo’s winless streak to 16 with a 4-0 victory Thursday night.
Radim Zohorna scored on his first shot in the NHL for the Penguins, and Jake Guentzel added an empty-netter. Sidney Crosby had three assists to reach 1,300 points and help Pittsburgh sweep a pair from the NHL’s worst team.
Buffalo’s bizarre season took another strange turn when general manager Kevyn Adams found himself on the bench serving as head coach after interim Don Granato and assistant Matt Ellis were placed in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol a few hours before the opening faceoff.
Even fleeting moments of success don’t last. Victor Olofsson appeared to put the Sabres on the board with 5:57 to play only to have it overturned on replay when winger Jeff Skinner was ruled offside.
Buffalo’s 0-14-2 stretch is the worst since the Penguins went 0-17-1 from Jan. 13 to Feb. 22, 2004.
RANGERS 8, FLYERS 3
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Mika Zibanejad had three goals and three assists for the second straight game against Philadelphia, Adam Fox had five assists and New York routed the Flyers.
Pavel Buchnevich added two goals, and Ryan Strome, K’Andre Miller and Filip Chytil also scored as the Rangers won their third straight and fifth in their last seven games.
Claude Giroux, Kevin Hayes and Sean Couturier scored for the slumping Flyers, They have lost four in a row and 10 of 14.
The teams were meeting eight days after the Rangers’ 9-0 home win over the Flyers, and New York continued where it left off at the outset of this one.
The teams will meet again Saturday.
ISLANDERS 4, BRUINS 3, OT
BOSTON (AP) — Anthony Beauvillier scored 21 seconds into overtime and New York overcame a two-goal deficit to beat the Bruins in the first major league sporting event in Boston with fans in attendance since the pandemic shutdown.
The Islanders trailed 2-0 after one period, but Jean-Gabriel Pageau cut the margin in half in the second, Josh Bailey tied it in the third and Oliver Wahlstrom gave New York the lead with 2:56 left in regulation. Just 54 seconds later, though, Anders Bjork tied it again.
Semyon Varlamov stopped 25 shots for the Islanders, They have won three straight and 12 of 14.
Karson Kuhlman and Steven Kampfer scored for Boston, and Halak stopped 14 of the 18 shots he faced after relieving Tuukka Rask to start the second period. Rask, who hadn’t played since March 7, left with an unspecified injury.
A crowd of 2,191 — 12% of capacity — was at the TD Garden to see the Bruins return from a weeklong pause after five players went into the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.
CAPITALS 4, DEVILS 3
WASHINGTON (AP) — Evgeny Kuznetsov scored twice, Alex Ovechkin kept his hot streak going with the 721st goal and Washington beat New Jersey for its eighth victory in nine games.
Ovechkin has scored eight times in his past nine games after what counted as a slow start for a player who has more goals than all but five players in league history. His team-leading 15th goal this season put him 10 back of Marcel Dionne for fifth place,
Dmitry Orlov also scored for Washington. Nick Merkley, Jesper Bratt and Miles Wood scored for New Jersey.
The teams will meet again Friday night.
MAPLE LEAFS 3, SENATORS 2, OT
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Justin Holl scored at 4:42 of overtime to lift Toronto past Ottawa.
Holl scored after Toronto star Auston Matthews broke up an Ottawa 3-on-1 in the neutral zone. Matthews wasn’t able to finish himself, but the puck found its way to Holl for his second goal of the season.
Jason Spezza and Ilya Mikheyev also scored for Toronto, and Jack Campbell made 29 saves. Toronto, which beat Calgary 2-0 at home Saturday night to snap a 1-6-0 run, moved two points ahead of idle Winnipeg and Edmonton for the North Division lead.
Alex Formenton and Connor Brown scored for Ottawa. Anton Forsberg, in his first appearance with the Senators after being claimed off waivers last week, stopped 38 shots.
HURRICANES 4, BLUE JACKETS 3, OT
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Sebastian Aho scored 1:26 into overtime to give Carolina a split of the four-game series with Columbus.
Aho had a wide-open net after Martin Necas’ shot off a rush was stopped by Joonas Korpisalo, but the goalie’s momentum forced him out of the crease.
Oliver Bjorkstrand scored from the doorstep to tie the game for Columbus with 16 seconds left in regulation.
Cedric Paquette, Nino Niederreiter and Necas also scored for the Hurricanes, and Alex Nedeljkovic followed up a shutout Monday night with 33 saves.
Zach Werenski and Cam Atkinson also scored for the Blue Jackets.