WASHINGTON CAPITALS FORWARD Alex Ovechkin (8) reaches for the puck alongside St. Louis Blues’ Alexander Steen (20) during the first period of an NHL hockey game on Thursday in St. Louis. The Capitals rolled to a 7-3 win.
John Tavares narrowly missed out on his second hat trick in a week, Thomas Greiss got his second straight shutout and the New York Islanders beat the Dallas Stars 3-0 on Thursday night in their first game since firing longtime coach Jack Capuano.
New York canned Capuano in the middle of his seventh season Tuesday, replacing him on an interim basis with Doug Weight.
Tavares has seven goals in four games after scoring twice and then having an empty-net shot just deflected wide late in the third period. He had three goals last Friday at Florida.
Greiss stopped 23 shots after making 32 saves in a 4-0 win over Boston on Monday. Calvin de Haan added an empty-net goal on a coast-to-coast shot with 4 seconds left.
Kari Lehtonen made 33 saves for Dallas, which was coming off a 7-6 victory over the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.
Senators 2, Blue Jackets 0
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Kyle Turris and Ryan Dzingel scored goals and Mike Condon made 42 saves to lead the Ottawa Senators past the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Condon was always where he needed to be for the Senators, who have won four of their last five and handed Columbus its fifth loss in the last eight games.
The Blue Jackets had trouble establishing passing lanes, and when they got the open looks, shot the puck right at Condon or off target. Eleven Columbus players took multiple shots with nothing to show for it.
Sergei Bobrovsky had 26 saves for the Blue Jackets, who were shut out for the first time since a 5-0 loss at Washington on Jan. 5 to end a franchise-record 16-game winning streak.
Capitals 7, Blues 3
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Andre Burakovsky, T.J. Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov each had a goal and an assist to lead the Washington Capitals over the St. Louis Blues.
Jay Beagle, Brett Connolly, Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams also scored, and Alex Ovechkin and Daniel Winnik each had two assists to help Washington earn at least a point in its 12th straight game (10-0-2) for an NHL-best 66 points.
Braden Holtby bounced back from his roughest outing of the season with 22 saves. Holtby was pulled after giving up a season-high five goals on 26 shots in an 8- 7 overtime loss at Pittsburgh on Monday. He improved to 22-8-4 and 5-0 lifetime against St. Louis.
Alexander Steen scored twice and Jaden Schwartz had a goal and two assists for St. Louis.
Rangers 5, Maple Leafs 2
TORONTO ( AP) — Michael Grabner scored two goals against his former team, helping the New York Rangers snap a threegame losing streak with a victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Pavel Buchnevich, Brady Skjei and J.T. Miller added goals for New York, and Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves following a series of rough outings.
Tyler Bozak and Zach Hyman scored for Toronto, which had a three-game winning streak stopped. The Maple Leafs had earned 21 of a possible 26 points in their previous 13 games (10-2-1). Frederik Andersen gave up four goals on 40 shots.
Wild 4, Coyotes 3
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter had two power-play goals and an assist, including the go-ahead score for the Minnesota Wild with 7:06 remaining in a victory over Arizona after the Coyotes came back from a two-goal deficit.
With Shane Doan in the penalty box for hooking, Niederreiter knocked in a nifty redirect of Mikael Granlund’s slap shot for the winner. Devan Dubnyk stopped 20 shots for the Wild, who are 18-2-2 in their last 22 games.
Louis Domingue made 21 saves for the Coyotes, who lost their fourth in a row and fell to 2-12-1 in their last 15 games starting with a 4-1 loss to Minnesota in Arizona on Dec. 17.
Predators 4, Flames 3
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Ryan Ellis had his first career two-goal game and the Nashville Predators held off a late rally to beat the Calgary Flames.
James Neal scored his team-leading 15th goal, and Filip Forsberg added the other score for Nashville, which moved past idle Los Angeles into the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Kris Versteeg, Michael Frolik and Sean Monahan all scored late in the third period for the Flames.
Rookie Juuse Saros made 32 saves for the win, while Chad Johnson turned aside 17 shots in defeat to fall to 16- 11-1.
Ducks 2, Avalanche 1
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Nick Ritchie scored the tiebreaking goal with 2:02 to play, and the Anaheim Ducks beat the Colorado Avalanche in a game featuring a 45-minute delay and an early second intermission due to broken glass.
John Gibson made 21 saves and Hampus Lindholm scored the tying power-play goal early in the third period of the Pacific Division leading Ducks’ eighth victory in 10 games.
Calvin Pickard stopped 34 shots for the NHL-worst Avalanche, who have lost four straight and 21 of 25.
Sharks 2, Lightning 1
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Logan Couture scored 22 seconds into the third period and the San Jose Sharks beat the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ryan Carpenter also scored for the Sharks, who won their third straight and fifth in seven games overall.
Jonathan Drouin scored for the Lightning, who fell to 2-6-1 in their last nine games and 2-9-3 over their past 14 road games.
Rookie Aaron Dell stopped 24 of 25 shots to improve to 8-2. Andrei Vasilevskiy saved 22 of 24 shots.
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